[{"id":"9653","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 2.1, Introducing ShortCuts, 19 October 2020, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/introducing-shortcuts/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2020],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/164da98e-4bd6-41fa-8a64-d4bd8f238820/audio/5b19bf3a-ad35-4448-9807-a46a7ca621f7/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-s2e1.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:06:01\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"5,847,293 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"shortcuts-s2e1\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/introducing-shortcuts/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2020-10-19\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"– Maxine Gadd with Richard Sommer, reading at the SGW Poetry Series, 18 Feb 1972, featured in ShortCuts 1.2\\n\\n– Daryl Hine, reading at the SGW Poetry Series, 1 Dec 1967,  featured in ShortCuts 1.1\\n\\n– bill bissett, reading on CKVU-TV Vancouver, September 1978, featured in ShortCuts 1.6\\n\\n– Kaie Kellough, reading at The Words and Music Show, 20 Nov 2016, featured in ShortCuts 1.3\\n\\n– Daphne Marlatt, reading at the SGW Poetry Series, featured in ShortCuts 1.5\\n\\n– Gwendolyn MacEwen, reading at the SGW Poetry Series, 18 Nov 1966, featured in ShortCuts 1.7\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549763391489,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["Welcome to ShortCuts. To kick off the new miniseries season, Katherine invites us into an audio remix of short clips from deep in the archive to consider: what does it mean and what is possible (technologically, phenomenologically, ethically, poetically) to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio-criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? \n\n\n00:00\n \n\nMusic:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n00:10\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to the SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series.\n00:28\tHannah McGregor:\tWe’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? A fresh take on our past minisode series, ShortCuts is an extension [Sound Effect: Wind Chime] of the ShortCuts blog posts on SPOKENWEBLOG. The series brings Katherine’s favorite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So, if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more [End Music: Instrumental Electronic] Without further ado, here’s Katherine McLeod with episode one of SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini stories about how literature sounds.\n01:11\tTheme Music:\t[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n01:12\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to ShortCuts. These minisodes take you on a deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives. And this season we’re going to be exploring even more audio collections across SpokenWeb’s network. So we’re headed into audio archives and we’re taking a shortcut. We’re getting there quicker through a ‘short cut’. A cut. [Sound Effect: Scissors] Or a clipped piece of audio. Usually around two to three minutes in length. Sometimes it’ll be a poem or sometimes the social noises around a reading that tell you about what it was like to be there.\n01:59\tAudio Recording, Maxine Gadd with Richard Sommer:\tUm, well, okay. Do you want to — oh, do you want to try it? Try improvising to, um, to, to, to, to a trip that’s here. I’ll let you read it. You seriously want to do that? Yeah, it’s just going to be some sounds.\n02:09\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat was poet Maxine Gadd speaking with Richard Sommer about an improvisation with poem and flute that they then performed.\n02:17\tAudio Recording, Maxine Gadd with Richard Sommer:\tYeah. Are we on? Sorry. Go ahead.\n02:19\tKatherine McLeod:\tIt was a clip featured in Minisode 1.2 from our first season.\n02:24\tAudio Recording, Maxine Gadd with Richard Sommer:\tWhat? The flute. I think it’s over there. Rich is going to make some, some noise with my flute. I’ll make some noise at the beginning of microphone. Okay. Which one you want?\n02:32\tKatherine McLeod:\tShortCuts brings you sounds out of the archives and into your ears. And what will you do with those sounds next? What you do with sound is one way of making scholarly criticism about sound. What do I mean by that? Well, let’s hear what ‘short cuts’ from last season sounded like. And let’s hear them spliced together. Spliced together. In this remix of highlights from last season, you’ll hear a sonic version of an introduction to ShortCuts.\n03:07\tAudio Recording, Daryl Hine:\tWell I also —this year or was it last —returned to my place of origin, British Columbia.\n03:20\tAudio Recording, bill bissett:\tThe wonderfulness of the Mounties, our secret police. They open our mail. Petulantly, they burned down barns they can’t bug. They listen to our political leaders phone conversations. What could be less inspiring to over hear? [Crowd Laughs]. They had me down on the floor till I turned purple. Then my friends pulled them off me. They think breastfeeding is disgusting.\n03:44\tAudio Recording, Kaie Kellogg:\t[Overlapping Audio Begins] [inaudible] All of the, all of the seeped down century from slavery. Appearances to the contrary that had appeared in a far flung summer of empire. The idea of the slum above it, that born yesterday or at 12 pack of empties. That born yesterday was finished or a bubble in that seat. [inaudible] archived by teenage brain wave of autobiography. A wave of conservatism has crashed. Oldsmobile cutlass supreme.\n04:42\tAudio Recording, Daphne Marlatt:\tOn the corner, there half indecisive tarnish of atrophied atheists, one, a house sign, a place to enter. Where I make tea, your lips on the future caught. So, you could read me.\n04:59\tAudio Recording, Gwendolyn MacEwen:\tThis is a poem, which oddly enough, came out in a Mexican magazine in Spanish not too long ago looking completely unrecognizable, to me. It’s called “I should have predicted.”\n05:18\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Begin Music: Instrumental Electronic] That remix was a series of short clips from our first season of these minisodes. Who are you listening to? Try to guess! Or head to spokenweb.ca to find out. Share which sound caught your attention by tweeting with the hashtag #spokenwebpod. I’m Katherine McLeod. And these minisodes are produced by myself, hosted by Hannah McGregor and mixed and mastered by Stacey Copeland. And a big shout out to Manami Izawa who designed the beautiful logo on the minisodes new web space. Tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives. [End Music: Instrumental Electronic]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9654","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 2.2, The Poem Among Us, 16 November 2020, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/the-poem-among-us/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2020],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/7a7388b9-3da3-43e8-9875-942a1b0b9b15/audio/2344e96b-cb76-4795-a9cb-3ef9f26d7aa9/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"s2ep2-the-poem-among-us.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:09:27\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"9,144,155 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"s2ep2-the-poem-among-us\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/the-poem-among-us/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2020-11-16\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Malcolm, Jane. “The Poem Among Us, Between Us, There: Muriel Rukeyser’s Meta-Poetics and the Communal Soundscape.” Amodern 4: The Poetry Series (March 2015), http://amodern.net/article/poem-among-us/\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549764440064,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This month’s ShortCut is an archival recording which transports us into the feeling of being at a live poetry reading. A feeling we are craving (right now in November 2020) as the covid-19 pandemic and social distancing continue. What is it that we are really missing about the live listening experience? The poetry? The poet? The anticipation of the event? The hum of the room?\n\nThe audio for this ShortCuts minisode is cut from the introductory remarks made by Muriel Rukeyser at her reading in Montreal on January 24, 1969: https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/muriel-rukeyser-at-sgwu-1969\n\n00:00      Music:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n00:10\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to the SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series.\n00:25\tHannah McGregor:\tWe’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? An extension of the ShortCuts blog posts [Sound Effect: Wind Chime] on SpokenWeb blog, this series brings Katherine’s favorite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. [End Music: Instrumental Electronic] Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts: mini stories about how literature sounds.\n \n\n01:12\tTheme Music:\t[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n \n\n01:19\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to ShortCuts: short stories about how literature sounds. Our shortcut this month is an archival recording that manages to transport us into the feeling of being at a live poetry reading.\n \n\n01:34\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser Reading [Unknown Speaker] :\n \n\nI now introduce Muriel Rukeyser [Applause].\n \n\n01:44\tKatherine McLeod:\tThis is a feeling that many of us are craving right now in November 2020 as the pandemic and social distancing continue. To be in a crowded room listening to poetry. [ Audio Recording of Muriel Rukeyser Begins] But what is it that we are really missing about that experience? The poetry? The poet? The anticipation of the event? The shared experience of attending? The hum of the room? The unknown? Poet Muriel Rukeyser puts it beautifully and inquisitively when she says that we go to poetry readings —\n \n\n02:22\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser:\tAll right. It’s partly out of curiosity and looking at the person and I go to see what is that breathing behind? What is that heartbeat? The breathing goes against the heartbeat on these rhythms is set up and the involuntary muscles and you see the person do it. But beyond that, something is shared —\n \n\n02:44\tKatherine McLeod:\tAs you can hear, she is creating this thought there as she is speaking.\n \n\n02:48\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser:\t— something is arrived at. Come to something with almost unmediated. That is the poem among us, between us, there. We are reaching each other.\n \n\n03:06\tKatherine McLeod:\tWhat makes these words even more contingent upon their situated utterance is that she’s saying all of this at the very start of a reading, one that she gave in Montreal on January 24th, 1969. Imagine attending a poetry reading and the poet starts by delivering a long and seemingly improvised reflection upon why we go to poetry readings at all.\n \n\n03:29\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser:\tAs you get a very, very rainy evening, why do people come and listen to poems where you’ve got some marvelous summer night? Why do people come and listen to poems?\n \n\n03:39\tKatherine McLeod:\tAnd then she asks us to think about what we are listening to at a reading. Rukeyser suggests that we are listening to the poem there in that moment. And Rukeyser makes this argument in a manner in which we cannot ignore it’s unfolding in time in that moment. “Something is what we call shared. Something is arrived at.” There. How do we get there? Rukeyser takes us there with a question: how many of you —\n \n\n04:11\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser:\tHow many of you here has ever written a poem? What’d you put up your hands, please. Thank you. I’m always nervous before I asked the question. I asked the question now in all rooms, no matter how few or many people there are, and if they’re universities I generally look around to see whether the basketball team is there. But there’s always the moment of silence and looking around first. And then generally quite slowly, almost all the hands go up. Maybe four or five, do not put up the hands. And if I wait around afterwards and with any luck and favourable wins, the four or five people come up to me and will say something like, “I was 15. It was a love poem. It stank.” [Audience Laughter].\n05:12\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser:\tBut the thing is, it’s a human activity. We all do it. We lie about it, you know, and they lie about it to us. And the fact is we all write poems. It is something we do. We come to this part of experience as you get a very, very rainy evening. Why do people come and listen to poems? Well, you got some marvelous summer night. Why do people come and listen to poems? All right. It’s partly out of curiosity and looking at the person. And I go to see what is that breathing behind? What is that heartbeat? The breathing goes against the heartbeat and these rhythms is set up and the involuntary muscles and you see the person do it. But beyond that, something is what we call shared. Something is arrived at. We come to something with almost unmediated. That is the poem among us, between us, there, we reaching each other. You giving me whatever silence you are giving me. And it comes to me with great strength, your silence.\n \n\n06:36\tKatherine McLeod:\tWe are reaching each other. You are giving me whatever silence you are giving me. And it comes to me with great strength, your silence. With these words, Rukeyser helps us understand what we’re missing in virtual readings. How can the audience give silence to the reader? Muting oneself is hardly the same.\n \n\n07:04\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser:\tSo there’s mediation. It is not a description. It is not only the music and it —although certainly the reinforcement of sound. The sound climbing up and finally reaching a place. The last word. The sound that begins with the first breathing. The breath of the title. Keats doing “Ode to a Nightingale”. We hardly ever say “ode”. Nobody says “nightingale”. But Keats having said that, never has to say it again. It’s a bird. If you find it in these things, but from the beginning, from the first moment, that is the first breath. The thing that is made of. Suggestion, breath, what my life has been, whatever that is, what’s your lives have been. Is a very short one closed song.\n \n\n08:08\tKatherine McLeod:\tWhen creating spaces for poetry to be shared now, how can we safely create a space for the poem to be a suggestion, breath, what my life has been, whatever that, what your lives have been? And well Rukeyser’s words are particularly relevant for our current times, her opening statement also helps us understand what we are listening to whenever we’re listening to an archival recording. One that is far removed from the event itself. Following Rukeyser’s line of thought, in archival listening, we listen to a relationality unfolding creating space for the poem to be among us, between us, there.\n \n\n08:58\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Begin Music: Instrumental Electronic] I’m Katherine MacLeod and these minisodes are produced by myself, hosted by Hannah McGregor and mixed and mastered by Stacey Copeland. Tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives. [End Music: Instrumental Electronic]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9655","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 2.3, Audible Time, 21 December 2020, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audible-time/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2020],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/896a5664-84c6-47d0-8fb6-b8d0b6d6726a/audio/4a72e0c1-e6fc-4fd5-acb5-c4919e45f777/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"minisode-s2e3-time.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:09:11\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"8,818,239 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"minisode-s2e3-time\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audible-time/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2020-12-21\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Berrigan, Ted. [Recording] Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 4 Dec 1970, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/ted-berrigan-at-sgwu-1970/\\n\\nHine, Daryl. [Recording] Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 1 Dec 1967, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/daryl-hine-at-sgwu-1967/\\n\\nHindmarch, Gladys. [Recording] Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 21 Nov 1969, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/gladys-hindmarch-at-sgwu-1969/\\n\\nSimic, Charles. [Recording] Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 19 Nov 1971, \\n\\nhttps://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/charles-simic-at-sgwu-1971/#2\\n\\nWright, James. [Recording] Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 13 December 1968, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/james-wright-at-sgwu-1968/\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549765488640,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["In trying to listen for time, this ShortCuts minisode listens for the New Year in SpokenWeb’s audio collections. What hopes do audiences have for the new year? And how do archival recordings help us understand our affective relation to time in our present moment?\n\nThe audio for this ShortCuts minisode is cut from recordings of the Sir George Williams Poetry Series, all available to listen to here: https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/ and listed individually below. \n\nShortCuts minisodes are developed from ShortCuts blog posts on SPOKENWEBLOG and the post that inspired this one is here.\n\n\n00:00      Music:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n00:10\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to the SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series.\n00:28\tHannah McGregor:\tWe’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? An extension of the ShortCuts blog posts [Sound Effect: Wind Chime] on SPOKENWEBLOG, this series brings Katherine’s favourite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So, if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini stories about how literature sounds.\n01:12\tSpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music:\t[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n \n\n01:18\tKatherine McLeod:\tHow can you hear time? When listening to a recording? Can you be listening for time? In a set of recordings of a reading series, such as the Sir George Williams Poetry Series, there’s an audible marking of time whenever a host of a December reading mentions that the next reading will take place in January. The new year. What hopes did the audience have for the new year? How do these archival recordings help us understand hope in our present moment?\n \n\n01:53\tAudio Recording, Daryl Hine, Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 1 December 1967:\tI negotiate the steps of paradise leaping to measures that I cannot hear. Thank you. [Applause]. [Announcer] I want to thank Mr. Hine and also announce that the next reading is on January 26 by the American poet, John Logan.\n \n\n02:33\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat was a clip of the end of Daryl Hine, reading “The Trout” in December, 1967. What was the audience thinking? And what did they imagine for January, 1968? What did Hine imagine? What if these were the last words of poetry that he read out loud in front of an audience in 1967? The words suddenly feel weightier when thinking of them in that way, a feeling that I would argue we can hear in another reading that ends up being the last one of 1968 in the Sir George Williams Series. It’s a reading by James Wright on December 13th, 1968.\n \n\n03:14\tAudio Recording, James Wright, Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 13 December 1968:\tSuddenly I realize that if I stepped out of my body, I would break into blossom. Thank you. [Applause] [Announcer]I just like to express all our thanks to James Wright for sharing his poetry and his curses and blessings with us tonight and to remind you that the next reading in the series is by Muriel Rukeyser on Friday, January 24th. Goodnight.\n03:57\tKatherine McLeod:\tWhat did the audience hear when they heard —\n \n\n04:01\tAudio Recording, James Wright, Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 13 December 1968:\n \n\nSuddenly I realized that if I stepped out of my body, I would break into blossom.\n04:08\tKatherine McLeod:\t—? What hopes did they have for 1969 as they listened? 1969. The last reading of that year in the Sir George William Series was introduced by George Bowering and the anticipation of the new year comes up right at the start.\n \n\n04:23\tAudio Recording, George Bowering (introducing Gladys Hindmarch):\tAnother Vancouver night in the series. This will be, this is a final reading of the fall series and will be picked up again in January. And as you know, from the propaganda sheets, or presenting what I consider to be the center of the Vancouver writing scene. Gladys Hindmarch has been in that scene for 10 years and was associated with all those, with those people who’ve got all kinds of names over the last few years such as the West Coast movement and the Tish movement and the New Wave Canada and that sort of business…\n \n\n05:08\tKatherine McLeod:\tBy the way, Bowering and Hindmarch read together virtually on December 16th, 2020. I mentioned that to mark time here in this minisode. Back to the archive:1970. Let’s see how this year ends in poetry, or at least in the Sir George Williams Poetry Series. The reading by Ted Berrigan on December 4th, 1970 is cut off so we don’t know if it ended with an announcement about the next reading. But it did end with Berrigan reading this poem. These are the last words heard in this last reading of 1970. It is the end of a poem called “People Who Died.”\n \n\n05:50\tAudio Recording, Ted Berrigan, Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 4 December 1970:\tKilled by smoke poisoning while playing the flute at the Yonkers Children’s Hospital during a fire set by a 16 old arsonist/ 1965. Frank. Frank O’Hara hit by a car on Fire Island/1966, Woody Guthrie, dead of Huntington’s Chorea/ In 1968. Neil. Neil Cassidy died of exposure sleeping all night in the rain by the railroad tracks of Mexico/ 1969.Franny Winston, just a girl totaled her car on the Detroit Ann Arbor freeway returning from the dentist / September, 1969. Jack. Jack Kerouac died of drink and angry sicknesses in 1969/ My friends whose deaths have slowed my heart stay with me now. [Applause].\n \n\n06:55\tKatherine McLeod:\tWe are listening to what it felt like to hear those words in 1970, and to feel those deaths as recent. We are hearing time and what it felt like to feel in that time. In the Berrigan poem, that feeling is one of loss, a feeling that so often counters a feeling of anticipation. We hear that anticipation in my last example, the end of a reading by Charles Simic in 1971.\n \n\n07:26\tAudio Recording, Charles Simic, Sir George Williams Poetry Series, Montreal, 19 November 1971:\tThe greatest mistake. The words I allow it to be written when I should have shouted her name. Thank you. [Applause]. [Announcer] The next reading will be on January 14th – Dorothy Livesay will read at that time.\n \n\n07:52\tKatherine McLeod:\tIf I were in the audience in 1971, I would be looking forward to that reading by Dorothy Livesay in 1972. Listening for time in the archives reveals moments such as these. Ones in which hope is audible. That listening is something we can learn from as we anticipate a new year. We don’t know what is ahead. And, even as I speak these words now – recording them under my blanket fort at home – I hope they will be heard. [Music Begins: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] Though, in what context I do not know right now, I play the role of the host in these archival recordings by marking time here and now, and by imagining a future time. In the role of the archival listener, I also know how it feels to hear a future time imagined as hopeful. It’s a powerful feeling to look forward to something, to share that feeling, and to listen back, hearing people looking forward to something. Thanks for listening and here’s to more listening together in 2021."],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9656","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 2.4, You Are Here, 18 January 2021, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/you-are-here/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2021],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/d8a35593-1877-46bf-94c7-d64f56737bdb/audio/faa70c17-eb76-4ddb-b635-578765ff8576/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"s2e4-shortcuts-you-are-here.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:09:47\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"9,450,101 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"s2e4-shortcuts-you-are-here\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/you-are-here/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2021-01-18\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Malcolm, Jane. “The Poem Among Us, Between Us, There: Muriel Rukeyser’s Meta-Poetics and the Communal Soundscape.” Amodern 4: The Poetry Series (March 2015), http://amodern.net/article/poem-among-us/\\n\\nRobinsong, Erin. “Anemone.” Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis. Coach House Books, 2020. Find out more about Watch Your Head as a book and online project here.\\n\\nRukeyser, Muriel. “Muriel Rukeyser at SGWU, 1969” (audio recording from the Sir George Williams Poetry Series). SpokenWeb, 24 January 1969, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/muriel-rukeyser-at-sgwu-1969\\n\\nFind out more about poet Muriel Rukeyser by visiting Muriel Rukeyser: A Living Archive. \"}]"],"_version_":1853670549765488641,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This ShortCuts minisode listens to one of the January readings that we heard about last time: a reading by Muriel Rukeyser that took place on January 24, 1969. Along with listening for mentions of January in the recording, this minisode listens to how Rukeyser’s reading enacts the very connection that she describes – a connection being created between the poet and the audience during a live reading.\n\nThe audio for this ShortCuts minisode is cut from the recording of Muriel Rukeyser’s reading in Montreal on January 24, 1969.\n\n00:00\tMusic:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n00:10\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to the SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series.\n00:28\tHannah McGregor:\tWe’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? A fresh take on our past minisode series, ShortCuts is an extension [Sound Effect: Wind Chime] of the ShortCuts blog posts on SPOKENWEBLOG. The series brings Katherine’s favorite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So, if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more [End Music: Instrumental Electronic] Without further ado, here’s Katherine McLeod with episode one of SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini stories about how literature sounds.\n01:17\tSpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music:\t[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n01:19\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to ShortCuts. You are here. Last time we listened to clips from the SpokenWeb audio collections in order to try to hear time. Or rather to hear an anticipation of the new year, a marking of time. Whenever the host would say something like “our next reading will take place in January”.\n01:42\tAudio Recording, George Bowering:\tThis is the final reading of the fall series, and we’ll be picked up again in January…\n01:47\tKatherine McLeod:\tHere we are now, in January. And let’s imagine that we are at one of those January readings that we heard about last time.\n01:55\tAudio Recording, Unknown Announcer 1\tI’d just like to express all our thanks to James Wright for sharing his poetry and his curses and his blasphemy with us tonight, and to remind you that our next reading is with Muriel Rukeyser on Friday January 24th. Goodnight.\n02:12\tKatherine McLeod:\tArriving to the reading, most likely in big winter coats, the audience has been looking forward to it. And now it is here…\n02:25\tAudio Recording, Unknown Announcer 2\tI’ll now introduce Muriel Rukeyser [Applause]…\n02:26\tKatherine McLeod:\tRukeyser is in front of us, reading her poems, in Montreal on January 24th 1969. Along with knowing that it took place in January, we can hear a sense of time in the recording. Let’s listen to this clip as our “short cut” into the archives for this minisode. She has just read “Elegy in Joy,” ending with these words that lead her into a story about something that marks this recording in time.\n03:00\t[Simultaneous] Katherine McLeod and Audio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser at SGWU, 1969:\t“Every elegy is the present, freedom eating our hearts, death and explosion and the world unbegun.”\n03:12\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser at SGWU, 1969:\tI thought of that very much at the beginning of this month in Mexico, and yesterday when I heard a story. It’s a story of what happened at Christmas time. I was in Mexico, I wonder whether you saw it. I heard of it yesterday in New York, as a little, three line story, in the back page of the New York Times, saying that the largest underground bomb-test was about to be held in Nevada in the States. And to that test, came five scientists, in Utah, in the States, to protest, to picket, to try to stop it. And another person who protested was Howard Hughes, who owns most of Las Vegas at this point, and had his own reasons for protesting. These protests did not stop the testing. The test was made. It was the largest underground test made yet. Do you know this story? There was a crack.\n04:29\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser at SGWU, 1969:\tThere’s a crack in the earth, big enough, they said — the way we talk — big enough for the Empire State Building. There’s a crack there, and deep under the crust there’s a three foot crack of some kind, and the rocks are still falling, and they say there will be earthquakes in various parts —unpredictable parts — of the world as a result of the shift of the under-crust. Now, last night, before I came here, on TV — late news in New York — they said that there’d been a quake in the Fiji Islands. I have no idea what the relations between these things are, I give it to you simply that something has happened to shift the under-crust – there will be unpredictable results. This is under the ground, the way we are bound to each other, we are also bound to each other through the air and the fall out has come over Canada – this is also a part of the story that I heard yesterday, and you, I can see by your nods, you know this part of the story…\n05:33\tKatherine McLeod:\t“I can see by your nods, you know this part of the story.” By this point, the audience is with her and thanks to her describing their nodding heads we know that they are. We are listening to the relationality created there in that room. Now, if this is sounding familiar, you might recall that in minisode 2.2, we listened to how Rukeyser introduced this very same reading. She talked about why on a cold January night we come out to listen to poetry…\n06:06\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser at SGWU, 1969:\t…it is partly out of curiosity, and looking at the person. And I go to see – what is that breathing behind? What is that heartbeat? The breathing goes against the heartbeat and these rhythms…\n06:19\tKatherine McLeod:\tAnd because of something else that is created while listening together…\n06:22\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser at SGWU, 1969:\tWe come to something with — almost unmediated — that is, the poem among us, between us there…\n06:34\tKatherine McLeod:\tIn her reading, there are poems in which one is acutely aware of being together, listening, even while listening to the recording apart. So how did her reading create that effect? Well, I would say that the story that we just heard of how we are all bound to each other does precisely that by asking us to think about our relation to one another. But that was through a story, an extra-poetic diversion between poems. What about in the poems themselves?\n07:05\tKatherine McLeod:\tLet’s listen to one more ShortCut from that same reading – a poem called “Anemone.” It’s one that not only exemplifies the creation of connection between the poet and the audience, but it’s also one that expresses the ecological attention of her story: the ways in which we are bound to each other through the earth and, in this case, through the ocean. In a recent collection of poems called, Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis, there is another “Anemone” poem by Canadian poet Erin Robinsong – and I would say that Rukeyser’s “Anemone” poem could be in this collection too as she too is responding to the climate crisis in her own way in 1969.\n08:23\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser at SGWU, 1969:\tAnemone, my eyes are closing. My eyes are opening. You are looking into me with your waking look. My mouth is closing. My mouth is opening. You are waiting with your red promises. My sex is closing. My sex is opening. You are singing and offering the way in. My life is closing. My life is opening. You are here.\n09:04\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat was Muriel Rukeyser reading “Anemone” a poem that creates a space of listening that is, at once, oceanic and intimate. And a poem that says to the listener: “You are here.”\n09:22\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Music Begins: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] I’m Katherine McLeod, and these minisodes are produced by myself, hosted by Hannah McGregor, and mixed and mastered by Stacey Copeland. Tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives. 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Macmillan, 1963.\\n\\n—. “Käthe Kollwitz.” The Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser. U of Pittsburgh P, 2006. \\n\\n—. The Life of Poetry. Current Books, 1949.\\n\\n—. “Muriel Rukeyser at SGWU, 1969” (audio recording from the Sir George Williams Poetry Series. SpokenWeb, 24 January 1969), https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/muriel-rukeyser-at-sgwu-1969\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549766537216,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["In this season of ShortCuts we’ve spent some time in a 1969 recording of poet Muriel Rukeyser, and we’re going to stay in that recording for this minisode, partly due to the depth of material within this single recording and partly as an opportunity to reflect upon what a minisode can do – through archival listening – to make connections. Rukeyser once said that poetry is “a meeting place” and this minisode suggests that, like poetry, a podcast is a meeting place. Listen to find out how we arrive at this meeting place and listen, once more, to the voice of the poet who spoke these words: “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? / The world would split open.”\n\n\n(00:10)\tMusic\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n(00:10)\tHannah McGregor\tWelcome to SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb‘s ShortCuts mini-series. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? An extension of the ShortCuts blog posts [Sound Effect: Wind Chime] on SPOKENWEBLOG, this series brings Katherine’s favourite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So, if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini stories about how literature sounds.\n(01:14)\tKatherine McLeod\tWelcome to ShortCuts. This season of ShortCuts we’ve spent some time in a recording of American poet Muriel Rukeyser. [Start Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] We’re going to stay in that recording, immersing ourselves in it, for one more minisode. We’re going to do that for two, no three, reasons: one, this recording lets us talk about spontaneous and unexpected moments that can happen during a reading and then end up being recorded; two, this recording lets us reflect on what this medium of a minisode on a podcast feed can do to create connections; and, three, this recording lets us continue to ask the question taken up in the past two minodes: How can we hear time? [End Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]. With that, let’s begin our archival listening to specific clips in the reading by Rukeyser.\n(02:08)\tSpoken Web Podcast Theme Music\t[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n(02:08)\tKatherine McLeod\tOn a cold January night in 1969, Muriel Rukeyser started her reading in Montreal by asking the audience to consider …\n(02:27)\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser, Montreal, 1969\tAnd as you get a very, very rainy evening, why do people come and listen to poems? Well, you’ve got some marvelous summer night. Why do people come and listen to poems?\n(02:37)\tKatherine McLeod\tIn minisode 2.2 we listened to those opening remarks and we thought about how it creates a relationship between the listener and the poet, or really between the listener and the event of the reading. One of the poems she read that night was “Anemone.”\n(02:53)\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser, Montreal, 1969\t“Anemone. My eyes are closing, my eyes are opening, you are looking at me with your waking look…”\n \n\n(03:04)\tKatherine McLeod\tWe listened to that poem in minisode 2.4 as a way of hearing the relationality that she spoke of as being created through the poetry reading, and how it was enacted through that poem. We also considered how an archival listening creates a connection between the past and present. Rukeyser’s critique of nuclear testing in 1969 speaks very much to our current climate crisis.\n(03:30)\tKatherine McLeod\tAfter making those minisodes, I shared the link, I tweeted it out, and I was elated to see a notification [Sound Effect: Phone Notification]: “Muriel Rukeyser has liked your post” No, it wasn’t Rukeyser herself haunting my Twitter feed, but it felt as though she had heard it – it was the Twitter account of the archival project, Muriel Rukeyser: A Living Archive. They had listened to ShortCuts and were excited about the recording that existed of Rukeyser – a recording that they had not yet been aware of.\n(04:01)\tKatherine McLeod\tMuriel Rukeyser: A Living Archive is holding a symposium during the same week when this minsode will go live – the entire symposium is based around Rukeyser’s series of “Elegies.” I assumed that there would be many recordings of Rukeyser reading from “Elegies” but it turns out that there are not – in fact, there might be very few – or even one. I know there is because, yes, it is on that very same 1969 reading by Rukeyser here in Montreal. Not only does this recording have a rare sound in that Rukeyser reads from “Elegies” but also when she introduces it she notes that she has never read it like this before. She cuts it up, and we’ll listen to her read the poem “Elegy in Joy” as our short cut [Sound Effect: Scissors Cutting] this month…\n(04:55)\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser, Montreal, 1969\tHere’s one piece of a long poem. It’s the last of a group called “Elegies,” which one hardly dares name anything anymore. It’s called “Elegy in Joy.” And it’s just the beginning piece. I wanted to do it tonight this way. I’ve never cut it up. “Elegy in Joy.” Now green, now burning, I make a way for peace. After the green and long beyond my lake, among these fields of people on these illuminated hills gold, burnt gold, spilled gold and shadowed blue. The light of enormous flame, the flowing wide of the sea. Where all the lights and nights are reconciled. The sea at last. Where all the waters lead and all the wars to this peace. For the sea does not lie like the death you imagine. The sea is the real sea. Here it is. This is the living. This peace is the face of the world. A fierce angel who in one lifetime lives fighting a lifetime, dying as we all die. Becoming forever, the continual God. Years of our time, this heart. The binding of the alone, bells of our loneliness, finding our lines and our music. Branches full of motion, each opening in its own flower. Lines of all songs, each speaking in its own voice. Praise in every grace, among the old same war. Years of betrayal, million deaths breathing its weaknesses and hope buried more deep, more black than dream. Every elegy is the present freedom eating our hearts, death and explosion, and the world unbegun.\n(07:29)\tKatherine McLeod\t“Every elegy is the present” – what an ending to that poem. But, that is not how the poem ends on the page. However, by choosing to “cut it up,” as she says, she creates a new version — a version in sound — that lets those lines ring out, as though they were the end of the poem. “Every elegy is the present” is a line that reminds me of how she ends the entire reading by asking the audience to encounter the present moment. She reads “The Speed of Darkness” which ends with a question: “Who will speak these days, /if not I, / if not you?”\n(08:09)\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser, Montreal, 1969\tThinking of the poet yet unborn in this dark who will be the throat of these hours, no of those hours. Who will speak these days, if not I, if not you? [Applause]\n(08:32)\tKatherine McLeod\tThe juxtaposition of those three sounds I find incredibly affecting: the powerful call out to you, the barely audible “thank you very much,” and the roar of applause that goes on for some time. I listen again and again to that…\n(08:50)\tAudio Recording, Muriel Rukeyser, Montreal, 1969\tThank you very much.\n(08:53)\tKatherine McLeod\tI am in that room and can see her standing at the front with the microphone and her papers; and it is as though the entire room takes a collective breath between the reading and the applause, an in-between space, an in-between sound. That voice who had just spoken these words with such volume: “who will be the throat of these hours?” A phrase that reminds us of the body as the source of sound. This is the same voice, the same body, who wrote and spoke these words within the past year of this reading: “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? / The world would split open.”\n(09:40)\tKatherine McLeod\tNow hear the applause again, all 25 seconds of it. If we listen to it all the way through we hear the announcement of the F.R. Scott reading on February 14th, bringing us back in time to the present moment of the reading, and back to Montreal with F.R. Scott the Montreal modernist. Let’s hear all of that again.\n(10:07)\tKatherine McLeod\tWho will speak these days, /if not I, / if not you?… Thank you very much… [Full applause for 25 seconds].\n(10:46)\tAudio Recording, Unknown Announcer at Muriel Rukeyser Reading, Montreal, 1969\tWe wish to announce that the next reading will be by F.R. Scott and that will be on February 14th at the same time in the theatre in the basement of this building. Thank you. [Audience Background Noise]\n(10:57)\tKatherine McLeod\t[Start Audience Background Noise Underlaid] As you can hear, the recording doesn’t stop. Nobody presses the button. It continues recording. Now this is the sound of the room, this is the sound of the audience, this is the sound of what it felt like to be there. This recording of the social interactions, even as muffled as there are, conveys the sound of that reading in its time, which is even more interesting to us during our current time of the pandemic when we long for attending an in-person event. We are hearing what Rukeyser has described as defining the poem: the poem as a meeting place. It is a point that Jane Malcolm makes in her brilliant analysis of this recording. Do check the show notes for that reference. And it is a point that I hear again, listening now. A meeting place…\n(11:53)\tKatherine McLeod\tI think of the conversations that I’ve had recently with Muriel Rukeyser: A Living Archive and I hear it almost as one of these conversations happening after the reading; but, it didn’t happen after a reading, it happened after a listening. That makes me imagine what connections can come of future sound-based criticism as forms like the podcast continue to circulate and to be heard. The podcast, like poetry, relies upon its “moving relations” – to quote a phrase of Rukeyser’s – moving relations within itself and with its listeners. And, to me, it seems that, like poetry, the podcast is a meeting place…\n(12:41)\tMusic\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n(12:44)\tKatherine McLeod\tI’m Katherine McLeod, and these minisodes are produced by myself, hosted by Hannah McGregor, and mixed and mastered by Stacey Copeland. Head to SpokenWeb.ca to find out more about ShortCuts and The SpokenWeb Podcast. And head to Muriel Rukeyser: A Living Archive to find out more about the symposium on Feb 19. If you are tuning in after the symposium, thank you for listening and for being part of these connections. Tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives. [Audience Background Noise Continues And Fades]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9658","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 2.6, Living Together, 15 March 2021, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/listening-together/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2021],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/7da3e459-6a0f-453f-89b9-abab0f2e6c07/audio/8d91254e-ec0f-4b5e-b988-11cda316e954/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"s2e6-shortcuts-listening-together.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:16:54\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"16,283,734 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"s2e6-shortcuts-listening-together\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/listening-together/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2021-03-15\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"AUDIO SOURCES\\n\\nArchival audio clips for this ShortCuts minisode are cut from this recording of Margaret Avison’s reading in Montreal on January 27, 1967.\\n\\nAudio clips of Stephanie Bolster and Barbara Nickel are from SpokenWeb’s Listening Practice, led by Katherine McLeod and held on January 27, 2021.\\n\\nAudio clips of Katherine McLeod in conversation with Mathieu Aubin were recorded over Zoom on March 9, 2021.\\n\\nRESOURCES\\n\\nAubin, Mathieu, “Audio of the Month – From Poetic Surveillance to an Avant-Garde Dinner Fit for a Queen.” ShortCuts 1.6, 15 June 2020, https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-from-poetic-surveillance-to-an-avant-garde-dinner-fit-for-a-queen/.\\n\\n@mathieujpaubin. “In today’s listening to the Sir George Williams collections, I heard Margaret Avison, who was introducing one of her poems, being interrupted by a man in the audience who mansplains her own work… eh boy. But, as a bad ass, Avison calls him out, making the audience laugh.” Twitter, 23 February, 2021, https://twitter.com/mathieujpaubin/status/1364328694341246980.\\n\\nAvison, Margaret. Winter Sun and The Dumbfounding, Poems 1940-66. McClelland & Stewart, 1982.\\n\\n“Listening to Winter Sun: A Virtual Ghost Reading (Margaret Avison, January 27, 1967) [led by Katherine McLeod.” SpokenWeb, https://spokenweb.ca/events/virtual-listening-practice-guided-by-katherine-mcleod/.\\n\\nMcLeod, Katherine. “Margaret Avison reading ‘Thaw’.” SPOKENWEBLOG, 30 March, 2020, spokenweb.ca/margaret-avison-reading-thaw/. Accessed 12 March, 2021.\\n\\nSarah, Robyn. “How poems work: Thaw by Margaret Avison.” Globe and Mail, 2 September 2000, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/how-poems-work/article25470778/.\\n\\nNickel, Barbara and Elise Partridge. “The Wholehearted Poet: A Conversation about Margaret Avison.” Books in Canada 33. 6 (September 2004), 34-36.\\n\\nQuebec, Ike. It Might as Well Be Spring. Blue Note Records, 2006.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549782265856,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["March is a time of year when you can hum along to “It Might as Well be Spring,” but, on other days, it can feel like winter might never end. Can we hear spring in the archives? And what does it feel like to listen to sonic representations of change – at a distance – together? Listen to Margaret Avison read “Thaw” (on 27 January 1967) as our ‘short cut’ this month. Then, get ready for the first ShortCuts audio challenge when a special guest joins us to talk about a perplexing moment in archival listening.\n\n\n00:00\n \n\nMusic:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n00:10\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to the SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series.\n00:28\tHannah McGregor:\tWe’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? A fresh take on our past minisode series, ShortCuts is an extension [Sound Effect: Wind Chime] of the ShortCuts blog posts on SPOKENWEBLOG. The series brings Katherine’s favorite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So, if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more [End Music: Instrumental Electronic] Without further ado, here’s Katherine McLeod with episode one of SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini stories about how literature sounds.\n01:10\tSpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music:\n \n\n[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n01:18\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to ShortCuts. It’s March 2021. Our deep dive into the SpokenWeb audio collections continues to ask the question of how to hear time. We’ll be listening to a poem that describes the moment between winter and spring. I’m recording this minisode in a city where the month of March feels a lot like winter. Here, March is a time of year when it might as well be spring, but, on other days, it can feel like winter might never end. It is a time of year when you can hear snow melting – a sound [Sound Effect: Snow Melting] that tells of the coming spring, and a sound that conveys the lasting presence of the past season, a frozen archive of winter… What does it feel like to listen in and to this season of change? Can we hear the spring thaw in archival recordings of poetry?\n02:21\tAudio Recording, Margaret Avison at SGWU, 1967:\tThis is one of the very cold days, I guess, about 10 below, cold enough. It’s inside the pane of glass – separating inside from outside comes into it, a certain kind of sky that goes with that which is like glass again…\n02:46\tAudio Recording, Margaret Avison at SGWU, 1967:\tThe sun has not absorbed this icy day and this day’s industry in behind glass hasn’t the blue and gold cold outside. Though not absorbing this sought that…\n03:03\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat was Canadian poet Margaret Avison introducing her very wintery poems on January 27, 1967. She read that night at Sir George Williams University, at what is now Concordia, in Montreal. That is the first event you’ll hear audio from in this ShortCuts. The second event was also held on January 27, but in a different year, not in 1967 but in 2021. On that January 27, I played some clips from Avison’s reading as part of a SpokenWeb Listening Practice.\n03:40\tKatherine McLeod:\tIn choosing to listen to the recording on the same day, it was like organizing a Ghost Reading, a listening activity in which the reading is listened to on the same day as it would have taken place and, while listening, listeners make things out of the listening (such as notes, doodles, booklets, paintings and more). I thought I’d try out how the Ghost Reading translates into a virtual environment in which we are listening together, but not in the same place. How would we listen and what would we make?\n04:12\tKatherine McLeod:\tPoet Barbara Nickel joined us for the Listening Practice and I asked her what it was like to hear that opening that we just heard of Avison introducing the wintery poem “The Absorbed” from Winter Sun…\n04:30\tAudio Recording, Barbara Nickel, Listening Practice:\tI spent the whole morning just reading Winter Sun. I have, from years of reading her, I have a certain voice in my mind: the voice of the page. And then to hear her voice for the first time … I can’t put words to it – it’s so mundane to me, her voice, it feels mundane in one sense it’s almost disappointing; but then, on the other hand, I find that the articulation of the consonants, something I love so much about Avison’s work, comes through so clearly, and articulates those sounds to me in a way that I’ve never noticed before.\n05:13\tKatherine McLeod:\tAlso listening was poet Stephanie Bolster and she had a very similar reaction to Barbara, in that this poet who she had spent so much time listening to on the page was now audible. I asked Stephanie if she had ever heard an Avison recording before…\n05:29\tAudio Recording, Stephanie Bolster, Listening Practice:\tNo, I never have, that’s what was sort of magical about it is her authentic voice, having had the voices of poems in my head, but never attributed any particular voice. And I guess I’m getting a sense of expectation of formality based on the work itself, but never really having thought about what she would sound like.\n05:46\tAudio Recording, Katherine McLeod, Listening Practice:\tYeah, I think, that’s such a great point, even to introduce her voice to us – to start with – because she’s somebody who —we’ve seen titles of her work — she has a book called Listening. So you think: what is this voice going to sound like? Or all of her work — say the poem “Snow,” maybe encountering that as an undergrad, and her words about “the sad listener” or “optic heart” that get so often quoted from that poem, but thinking: what does her voice sound like reading it?\n06:15\tKatherine McLeod:\tAs I started riffing upon Stephanie’s point, she added a comment into the Zoom chat that it was important to remember that Avison’s voice is mediated through recording technologies. So that really raises the question of where the authentic voice is, and whether there are other ways of understanding it’s embodied and material source – where the voice is coming from. Let’s hear more of Avison’s voice from this archival recording, as she reads the poem…\n06:45\tAudio Recording, Margaret Avison at SGWU, 1967\t“The Thaw”. Sticky inside their winter suits / The Sunday children stare at pools/ In pavement and black ice where roots/ Of sky in moodier sky dissolve. / An empty coach train runs along / The thin and sooty river flats / And stick and straw and random stones / Stream faintly when its steam departs. / Lime-water and liquorice light / Wander the tumbled streets. A few/ Sparrows gather. A dog barks out / Under the dogless pale pale blue. Move your tongue along a slat / Of raspberry box from last year’s crate. / Smell a saucepantilt of water / On the coal-ash in your grate. / Think how the Black Death made men dance, / And from the silt of centuries/ The proof is now scraped bare that once/ Troy fell and Pompei scorched and froze. / A boy alone out in the court/ Whacks with his hockey-stick, and whacks / In the wet, and the pigeons flutter, and rise, / And settle back.\n08:15\tKatherine McLeod:\t“Thaw” is a poem that I wrote about last year in March 2020 – when ShortCuts used to be Audio of the Week – I chose the poem as a way of coping with the uncertainty of the pandemic. By chance, the poem ends up having a reference to the plague in it. There I was, trying to find a poem to guide us from winter to spring, through a transition, and I was forced to confront the pandemic again. I could have pressed stop, but I chose to re-play the poem and to re-listen to it again, as I have done again here and in the listening practice. The poem depicts a solitary image – “a boy alone,” making a sound with the hockey stick, causing the pigeons to “flutter and rise and settle back” – a scene and a sound of winter solitude and of repetition. What was it like to listen to this poem together?\n09:22\tAudio Recording, Stephanie Bolster, Listening Practice:\tI guess I’ll say that I kept wishing I could seize everything, and slow it down and take in the details, just the density and abundance of details. I was scribbling things down, and couldn’t keep up. And, in that sense, it really felt the same sense I would have had in a live reading. Even though it was recorded, because we were listening to it together, I couldn’t just stop it and go back. And so I think it really did replicate that sense of having a communal experience. Sharing something, and gaining all that I gained and also losing what one does lose in a live reading.\n09:53\tKatherine McLeod:\tHere we were on January 27, 2021, listening to a recording of Avison from January 27, 1967, and we were struck by the immediacy of her voice. I couldn’t help but think that maybe all of these online readings were making us even more attuned to the recorded voice. With nearly all literary events as virtual over this past year, we are practising our skills of hearing an archival recording as a performance, one that is mediated and live. Let’s liven up the end of this miniside – get ready for our first ShortCuts audio challenge, [Sound Effect: Fanfare] solving mysteries in the audio archives, together! There’s a very curious moment in the recording of the Avison reading. I had wanted to talk about this curious moment in the recording but we didn’t have time in the listening practice… Then a couple weeks later I saw that SpokenWeb researcher Mathieu Aubin – a friend of ShortCuts as you may recall he guest-produced a minisode last season – he had posted a tweet about this very same moment. He agreed to revisit this moment in the archives together.\n11:02\tAudio Recording, Katherine McLeod, Zoom interview:\tSo, thank you for joining me for this conversation, and welcome back to ShortCuts.\n11:09\tAudio Recording, Mathieu Aubin, Zoom interview:\tHi, happy to be here.\n11:11\tAudio Recording, Katherine McLeod, Zoom interview:\tWhat was the tweet that you wrote after listening to the Avison reading? Would you mind reading that out for us?\n11:16\tAudio Recording, Mathieu Aubin, Zoom interview:\tYeah, of course. So “In today’s listening to the Sir George Williams collections, I heard Margaret Avison, who was introducing one of her poems, being interrupted by a man in the audience who mansplains her own work… eh boy. But, as a badass, Avison calls him out, making the audience laugh.”\n11:35\tAudio Recording, Margaret Avison at SGWU, 1967:\tI think it is just beautiful, but nobody gets it unless I explain, so I’ll explain, it’s like you take a piece of 8 by 11 typing paper….\n11:44\tAudio Recording, Audience Member  at Avison at SGWU, 1967:\n \n\nDon’t explain, just say it.\n11:46\tAudio Recording, Margaret Avison:\tAlright, you can tell me then, eh? “Said the mite on the single page of a sad letter: Eureka.” Now, come on… [Audience Laughs] Hmm? Does anybody want the explanation? Well I’ve read it. It’s just a crumpled-up letter, you know, you get it and you read it and you cry and you crumple it up and you throw it down and the mic goes up…now I’ll read it again. “Said the mite on the single page of a sad letter: Eureka.”\n12:45\tAudio Recording, Mathieu Aubin, Zoom interview:\tWhen I was listening to it the first and second time – because I re-listened to it immediately – it’s different with you, obviously, because we’re actually responding and we’re both in on this is about to happen – but it’s, first, the audacity of that anonymous man just interrupting her and then telling her to do something, on the one hand. On the other hand is her being like, come on, do you want to do it? Do you, do you really want to – just calling him out and you could feel it generations later of that awkwardness and everyone is like ‘eee’….\n13:24\tAudio Recording, Margaret Avison at SGWU, 1967:\tI’ll read it again: “Said the mite on the single page of a sad letter. Eureka!”\n13:35\tAudio Recording, Katherine McLeod, Zoom interview:\tThat point that we’re almost, we’re listening, almost anticipating knowing what she’s going to do —.\n13:39\tAudio Recording, Mathieu Aubin, Zoom interview:\tYeah.\n13:39\tAudio Recording, Katherine McLeod, Zoom interview:\t— I love thinking of all the sounds in there. Even I’m wondering what this is: it almost sounds like she stamps the desk with her hand or something. So, I’ll just play this here…\n13:52\tAudio Recording, Margaret Avison at SGWU, 1967:\tAll right. You can tell me then. [Muffled Bang] Eh?\n13:58\tAudio Recording, Mathieu Aubin, Zoom interview:\tYeah, you’re right! I didn’t notice that — I was paying attention more to the sorts of the words that I could understand. But you’re right. You hear the book hitting the — I don’t know the podium or whatever it was.\n14:07\tAudio Recording, Katherine McLeod, Zoom interview:\tYeah, just that sound. It really sounds like either hitting something down onto the desk or a book hitting… but it punctuates it. [Sigh] It’s also interesting that the whole joke or pun is about paper and a letter. And then, this, if she does like slam the book down, the presence of the weight of the page is right there.\n14:34\tAudio Recording, Margaret Avison at SGWU, 1967:\t[Recording overlaps with Katherine] It’s just a crumpled up letter – you cry, you crumple it up, you throw it down…\n14:36\tAudio Recording, Katherine McLeod, Zoom interview:\t[Katherine overlaps with Avison recording] You cry, you crumple it up, you throw it down – and there are so many emotions happening in this moment.\n14:41\tAudio Recording, Margaret Avison at SGWU, 1967:\n \n\nNow I’ll read it again…\n14:41\tAudio Recording, Katherine McLeod, Zoom interview:\tDo you feel like, do you feel like you get it?\n14:46\tAudio Recording, Mathieu Aubin, Zoom interview\tYeah. I think –I mean I’m trying to picture it in my head and obviously when I’m listening to it and I can kind of see it. Do I immediately get this symbolic significance? Not necessarily. At the same time, I think it gains more significance with what’s happening in that moment, and in the performance, like with the “Eureka!” – the here we are! Like what you were saying earlier, almost like drawing a parallel between what’s happening with the paper and her using the paper and speaking up. If I were to read it on the page, I would probably sit with it a bit longer, but that’s the thing about audio, right? You can pause it, but you’re trying to listen along and trying to be in that moment.\n15:27\tAudio Recording, Katherine McLeod, Zoom interview:\tWe talked about it even more than I could have imagined from the clip itself. So thanks so much for listening back to this moment in the archives and for joining me once again on ShortCuts.\n15:38\tAudio Recording, Mathieu Aubin, Zoom interview:\n \n\nAnd it’s been my pleasure. Thanks for having me.\n15:40\tMusic:\tPiano Interlude\n15:45\tKatherine McLeod:\tLet’s leave this mystery unsolved. And, more than solving the mystery, I hope that this audio challenge will unite us as an audience – in 1967 and in 2021 – as having to figure something out, together, as having to share our confusion and our curiosity. My name is Katherine McLeod, [Piano With Distorted Beat] and ShortCuts [Sound Effect: Chime] is produced by myself, hosted by Hannah McGregor, and mixed and mastered by Stacey Copeland. This minisode was recorded in the city of Montreal, on the unceded lands known as Tiohtià:ke by the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation. A special thanks to Stephanie Bolster, Barbara Nickel, and to all of the listeners in the Listening Practice. And, of course, to our guest Matthew Aubin for taking on the first ShortCuts Audio Challenge. Tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives, and next month… it might be spring."],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9664","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 4.1, Archival Listening, 17 October 2022, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/archival-listening/"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2022],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/archival-listening/\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-4-1.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:10:29\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"10,059,067 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"shortcuts-4-1\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/archival-listening/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2022-10-17\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Interim Transcript"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Katherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.1 “Sounds”: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/sounds/\\n\\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.9 “Re-Situating Sound”: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/re-situating-sound/\\n\\nArchival audio, Dionne Brand, 1988 reading, from ShortCuts 3.3 “Communal Memories”: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/communal-memories/\\n\\nArchival audio: Douglas Barbour, from Penny Chalmers (Penn Kemp) at the University of Alberta, February 18, 1977; Douglas Barbour introducing Penny Chalmers (Penn Kemp) at the University of Alberta, February 18, 1977; Douglas Barbour introducing Leona Gom at the University of Alberta, February 21, 1980; Douglas Barbour, from John Newlove at the University of Alberta, March 19, 1981 — all from ShortCuts 3.6 “Listening Communities: The Introductions of Doug Barbour” (guest produced by Michael O’Driscoll): https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/listening-communities-the-introductions-of-douglas-barbour/\\n\\nArchival audio, Daphne Marlatt, 1970, from ShortCuts 3.4 “Sonic Passages”: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/sonic-passages/\\n\\nDaphne Marlatt interview with Karis Shearer and Megan Butchart played on “SoundBox Signals presents Performing the Archive” an episode of SoundBox Signals that was aired on The SpokenWeb Podcast (co-produced by Karis Shearer, Megan Butchart, and Nour Sallam), clipped on ShortCuts 3.4: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/sonic-passages/\\n\\nInterview with Kelly Cubbon, “Talking Transcription: Accessibility, Collaboration, Creativity,” (co-produced by Kelly Cubbon and Katherine McLeod), S3E9 The SpokenWeb Podcast, June 2022: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/talking-transcription-accessibility-collaboration-and-creativity/\\n\\nInterview with Kaie Kellough, ShortCuts 3.5 “The Voice that is the Poem”: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/the-voice-that-is-the-poem-ft-kaie-kellough/\\n\\nArchival audio, Oana Avasilichioaei, from ShortCuts 3.8: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/the-event/\\n\\nArchival audio, bpNichol, November 1968, from ShortCuts 3.2: “What the Archive Remembers”: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/what-the-archive-remembers/\\n\\nArchival audio, Phyllis Webb, from ShortCuts 3.7 “Moving, Still”: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/moving-still/\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549784363008,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["In this first episode of Season 4, SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts continues the tradition of starting a new season by diving into its own archives. What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through short archival clips? Join host and producer Katherine McLeod to listen to clips from Season 3 of ShortCuts as a way of asking what literary criticism sounds like through cutting and splicing sound. It is a short exercise in archival listening, and archival making.\n\n[Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] ]\n\nKatherine McLeod: Welcome to ShortCuts. My name is Katherine McLeod. Join me, each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts. Short stories about how literature sounds.\n\n[End Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n\nOn ShortCuts, we explore what you can make by cutting up [scissor cut] and splicing sound digitally. What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? If you’re a researcher with the SpokenWeb Project, do think about joining me on ShortCuts to discuss an archival clip that has impacted your work, especially if you’re a student who has been digitizing and cataloguing recordings and there’s a sound that stands out to you after all those hours of listening. Get in touch! Write to SpokenWebPodcast@gmail.com\n\nNow, as I’ve always done to start each season, let’s dive into the archives of ShortCuts. We’ll listen to clips from the previous season, Season 3, in order to hear what ShortCuts sounds like… We’ll do this as is an exercise in listening – an exercise in archival listening. From now on…\n\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.1: All of the sounds will be clips from Season Three of ShortCuts, and that includes my voiceover. [Overlapping] My Voiceover, my voiceover.\n\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.9: And I say that while holding out my arms gesturing as though I’m attempting to hold the sound.\n\n[Tape rewinding]\n\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.9: I am holding the sound carefully, knowing how difficult it can be to take a recorded voice, with all of its situated affect attached to it, out of the archives. To unarchive carefully.\n\n[Tape rewinding ends]\n\nArchival audio, Dionne Brand, 1988 Reading, from ShortCuts 3.3: Lee read the epigram back to me in Montreal. And I was very honoured too, that she had written it back to me and I’ve been trying to write her back an epigram. We might make a book [Audience Laughter]. So I haven’t got very far with the epigram except to say: “Write me out of this epigram, Lee, you are so much water. You are too much water, too much rock, so much eagle. Write me out of this epigram, Lee. I am so much bush, so much ocean, so much rage…” And that’s just the beginning. [Laughter] It’s not finished. [Clapping] It’s supposed to go and like “write us out of this goddamn epigram.” [Audience Laughter]. I want to read a couple poems about South Africa.\n\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.3: Brand starts her reading after Maracle with a poem for South Africa. And that is exactly how Maracle had started hers. I am taking all of these audio clips out of their contexts, out of their linear order in which they would’ve been heard in the reading, but, in doing so, I’m trying to bring to the forefront, the connections that are embedded within it and the conversation happening between poets in the reading itself.\n\nArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour, from Penny Chalmers (Penn Kemp) at the University of Alberta, February 18, 1977, from ShortCuts 3.6: They’ll be right up to your feet but that won’t be too bad.\n\nArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Penny Chalmers (Penn Kemp) at the University of Alberta, February 18, 1977, from ShortCuts 3.6: …Penny is the author of Most Recently Transformed, which is a marvelous looking book, as well as a very, very fine book…\n\nArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Leona Gom at the University of Alberta, February 21, 1980, from ShortCuts 3.6: [Audience Chatter] …still a bit of… Not much [Audience Laughter]. We’re happy to welcome Leona Gom. [Audience Applause]\n\nArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour, from John Newlove at the University of Alberta, March 19, 1981, from ShortCuts 3.6: [Audience Chatter] …there’s your friend. There’s a little bit of room if you wanna sit on the floor here!\n\nAudio recording, Daphne Marlatt, 1970, from ShortCuts 3.4: This is a poem that I wrote when I was about… oh I don’t know, seven or eight months pregnant… [Pause] …Bird of Passage. I wrote it in Vancouver… spring time again…. Bird of Passage.\n\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.4: Here, was Marlatt in 1970 saying that she had written this poem ‘Bird of Passage’ while she was pregnant. That is significant in and of itself when thinking of the body but now I was hearing it with the full resonance of her recent conversation with Shearer and Buchart from the podcast and what Marlatt says when the date of the recording, July 1969, is mentioned…\n\nArchival audio played on “SoundBox Signals presents Performing the Archive”, 2019, from ShortCuts 3.4: Interesting that date, because I had given birth to my son at the beginning of May. So, I was a young mother, my body had gone through a major experience. That was not the experience that I’d had when I wrote those poems. What was interesting to me hearing last night at the reading – there was so much – my voice was so much more present in those poems than I had remembered my voice being…\n\nKelly Cubbon, S3E9, SpokenWeb Podcast: […] I think also overlapping context for lack of a better word has been something I’ve I think we’ve been working to indicate such as if someone appears in an episode in a Zoom interview and then in an archival recording of them, and that archival recording includes them speaking to the audience as an aside and then performing poetry. And then maybe they’re in kind of a more formal voiceover audio. There might be four instances of slightly different context to indicate.\n\nZoom interview with Kaie Kellough, from ShortCuts 3.5: : You asked me [Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Music] what it was like, what I thought about when hearing it and it’s strange to hear that kind of reflection of yourself and to – I didn’t realize it was as far back as 2016, because it feels a lot sooner. I remember what I was thinking about. I remember what my poetry, my poetic preoccupations were at the time. I remember how far that poem came because it was young and sentimental when I wrote it, and then it was not like that by the time it was published. It took on a different sort of personality by the time it was published. But yeah, I remember everything that I was thinking about. I remember how excited I was about it. Yeah. It’s just a — so thank you.\n\nZoom interview, Katherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.5: Thank you so much.\n\nArchival audio, Oana Avasilichioaei, from ShortCuts 3.8: [Performing “Chambersonic”] Let form be oral / a foundation / sonority / an impossible lone sound / recording / the ghost of sound [whispered] the ghost of sound. Let form be oral. A foundation of phonemes. Distorted – [overlapping voice] fragments. Re-assemblages. [Whispered] The ghost of sound…\n\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.8: This. This is a setting on music. This is. What is this? It is as though she is asking us to consider: what is this this-ness of sonority? Of an impossible lone sound? Of the ghost of sound?\n\nArchival Audio, bpNichol, November 1968, from ShortCuts 3.2: [Reading poem] Wanting you, I forgot you. You erased my name. Erasing you, the wanting forgot, I tried your name.\n\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.2: The emotional weight of archives.\n\nArchival audio, Phyllis Webb, from ShortCuts 3.7: [Reading from “Naked Poems”] In the gold darkening light / you dressed / I hid my face in my hair. / The room that held you is still here. / You brought me clarity / gift after gift I wear / poems / naked, in the sunlight / on the floor [sound of pages turning]…\n\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.2: To what extent are we trying, trying to remember or trying to erase a memory that may not be ours in the first place –\n\nArchival Audio, bpNichol, November 1968, from ShortCuts 3.2: [Reading a poem] I wanted to forget you, so I tried to erase your name.\n\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.2: — and yet having heard it, that memory can never be forgotten. The feeling of having heard it is still there.\n\n[Ambient music begins]\n\nKatherine McLeod, from ShortCuts 3.9: You’ve been listening to ShortCuts. ShortCuts is transcribed by Kelly Cubbon, mixed and mastered by Miranda Eastwood, and written and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening.\n\n[End of music]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9665","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 4.2, ShortCuts Live! Talking with Sarah Cipes about Feminist Audio Editing, 21 November 2022, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-talking-with-sarah-cipes-about-feminist-audio-editing/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2022],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2022-11-21\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Draft transcript."],"Note":["[{\"note\":\"The wrong file is linked on the podcast site, so this episode cannot be listened to/downloaded and some information is missing.\",\"type\":\"Cataloguer\"}]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Cipes, Sarah. “It’s more of a feeling… Digitizing Reel-to-Reel for the SpokenWeb SoundBox Collection.” AmpLab, online.\\n\\nFong, Deanna and Shearer, Karis. “Gender, Affective Labour, and Community-Building Through Literary Audio Recordings.” SPOKENWEBLOG, 21 April, 2022.\\n\\nHeld, Virginia. The Ethics of Care. Oxford University Press, 2005.\\n\\nHobbs, Catherine. “Personal Ethics: Being an Archivist of Writers.” Basements and Attics, Closets and Cyberspace: Explorations in Canadian Women’s Archives. Eds. Linda M. Morra and Jessica Schagerl, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012, pp. 181–92.\\n\\nWanting Everything: The Collected Works of Gladys Hindmarch. Eds. Deanna Fong and Karis Shearer.  Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2020.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549786460160,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This month, it is ShortCuts Live! We’ll still take a deep dive into the SpokenWeb archives through a short ‘cut’ of audio, but, in these ShortCuts Live! episodes, ShortCuts host and producer Katherine McLeod takes ShortCuts out of the archives and into the world. This month’s episode was recorded on-site at the SpokenWeb Symposium and Sound Institute in May 2022 at Concordia University. It is a conversation with UBCO doctoral candidate Sarah Cipes. \n\nAt the time of recording this conversation, Sarah had just presented a paper called “Finding Due Balance: Sound Editing as a Feminist Practice in Literary Archives.” In fact, this paper was already in conversation – that is, part of a collaborative article in development with Dr. Deanna Fong and Dr. Karis Shearer who have developed feminist listening methodologies in their introduction to Wanting Everything: The Collected Works of Gladys Hindmarch and to their article, “Gender, Affective Labour, and Community-Building Through Literary Audio Recordings.” Listen to ShortCuts Live! to hear Sarah talk with Katherine about feminist redaction when working with sensitive materials in audio archives, and where this collaborative research will take her next.\n\nShortCuts, Live! Talking with Sarah Cipes about Feminist Audio Editing\n\n[Theme music]\n\nKatherine McLeod [host intro]: Welcome to ShortCuts. This month, it is ShortCuts Live! We’ll still take a deep dive into the SpokenWeb archives through a short ‘cut’ of audio, but, in these ShortCuts Live! episodes, ShortCuts host and producer Katherine McLeod takes ShortCuts out into the world and records them as conversations, live. This month’s episode was recorded on-site at the SpokenWeb Symposium and Sound Institute in May 2022 at Concordia University in Montreal.\n\n[Theme music ends]\n\nAmid the bustle of a packed week of talks and workshops, it was such a treat to sit down with some of the presenters and have a conversation about their archival audio. It was especially meaningful considering how ShortCuts started in 2020 and so nearly all of its episodes have been recorded during the pandemic, and mostly in my closet. It felt great to be sitting down with folks at our microphones in the same space, and to embrace the background noise around us – after all, it was all happening live! In this ShortCuts Live, you’ll hear my conversation with UBCO doctoral candidate Sarah Cipes. At the time of the recording, Sarah had just presented a paper called “Finding Due Balance: Sound Editing as a Feminist Practice in Literary Archives.” We sat down together at microphones set up in Concordia’s 4th Space, and you can hear the buzz of the symposium behind us – reminding us that this is being recorded live…\n\nKatherine: Welcome to ShortCuts. We’re recording this ShortCuts, live, in 4th Space at Concordia University during the SpokenWeb Sound Institute. I’m here with Sarah Cipes. Thanks so much for joining me, Sarah!\n\nSarah: Thanks so much for having me. This is very exciting.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Well, the reason that I asked Sarah to join me is that, during the SpokenWeb Symposium she delivered a paper that was really based on an audio clip. It was really all about one audio clip, which seemed perfect for ShortCuts because we love diving into the complexity of a single audio clip. So I thought that one way of starting would be for Sarah and I to listen to the clip together…\n\n \n\nArchival audio,Warren Tallman: \n\nNow one thing I’m curious about [inaudible – distortion]….\n\n \n\nArchival audio, Gladys Hindmarch:\nThat the young recognize, the elders two years older.\n\n \n\nArchival audio, Warren Tallman:\nAnd they’re both, they’re both and, but now…\n\n \n\nKatherine: So rather than starting with a question of “What are we listening to?” I’m going to ask you, Sarah, what it’s like to listen to that clip – here and now in this moment…\n\n \n\nSarah: That was a really lovely refresher and a nice moment – and, I don’t know if you noticed I was smiling while I was listening to it. I am really pleased with what we were able to sort of tease out of the sound that was left when the voices are gone. And I – I actually said something in my talk on Tuesday that I hadn’t planned to say – and that I hadn’t thought of previously – but I was being sparked by all of these amazing questions and thoughtful comments from the audience – and that is that I wanted people to feel, when they’re listening to it, uncomfortable, as if they’re trying to listen in onto a conversation that they shouldn’t be listening to, like trying to listen through a door. I think that even though this is a preliminary version of the idea of the feminist edit, I think that I was able to bring home that feeling of discomfort and of tonal variance… And, yeah, tonal discomfort for the listener that you should feel when you’re trying to hear other people’s gossip <laugh>.\n\n \n\nKatherine: You refer to this as a feminist edit, and what do you mean by that, generally?\n\n \n\nSarah: So when I initially started working with the idea of feminist edits, it was really, it’s really a large idea. It can, it can really incorporate anything that comes within the idea of feminist ethics of care. So, I looked at Virginia Held’s Ethics of Care, as a big proponent of my understanding of what to do with feminist edits. And I also looked at Catherine Hobbs’s discussions and scholarship about literary archives and what it means to be respectful when you’re archiving.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>\n\n \n\nSarah: And so bringing that into audio was a really interesting idea for me because redaction restriction and censorship and all of these things that have a lot of negative feelings around them for researchers can actually be turned into positive things, I think, particularly within audio that actually allow users to listen to tapes that they might otherwise be totally barred from.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.\n\n \n\nSarah: And so my desire was to create sound edits that allow the listener to hear the vast majority of the tape while also protecting the privacy of those on the tape, or even in this case, someone who’s mentioned who’s not there. But really a feminist edit could also be about amplifying voices that are not usually central to the microphone.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Yeah, I can imagine – it makes me think of in the 1963 Poetry Conference that was recorded by Fred Wah’s tape recorder. That now is at UBCO <laugh> I think you have that recorder. When listening to those recordings it’s so interesting to hear a question asked, and you can tell that it’s a voice from very far back in the room, and often those voices are women because – you know, you really hear it – the men are up front, closest to the mic. And, you know, hearing say a question asked by a voice that is, say, quite soft in terms of the recording and the placement in the room, and just like literally amplifying that voice, let alone all of the other ways that voices could be amplified. That just just makes me think of the, the potential there for centering voices through audio edits – making them clearer, making them louder – on a very technical level.\n\n \n\nSarah: There really is so much that that could be done. And that’s why I love the idea of the feminist edit within archives because archiving itself is such an intuitive practice and sound editing. These kinds of sound edits have all been very intuitive and very personal. And I think that every single person who encountered and tried to edit this tape would’ve ended up with a different edit, which is really, it’s really cool. It allows you to think about how people’s brains work in terms of what: Do you want the listener to feel when they can’t hear specific kinds of audio?\n\n \n\nKatherine Yes, and you’ve been working with Dr. Karis Shearer and, I believe, [Dr.] Deanna Fong as well, and could you speak to a little bit about that collaboration?\n\n \n\nSarah: It’s been really wonderful. I am lucky enough to have Dr. Karis Shearer as my supervisor. She has just been such an amazing, inspiring person leading me through this. I tend to focus more on the practical, and in those ways I sometimes leave the theoretical behind and I forget to ground my work in theory. And so working with Karis and Deanna has been really amazing and really important for me because it has pushed me to step back and say: Okay, I’m trying to create this practical edit, but what am I grounding my work in? Where is this coming from? Instead of just assuming that everyone understands my desire to do a feminist edit. You have to express, you know, why that’s necessary. Where does this work already exist? Where did it begin? Where am I? Where am I pulling from?\n\n \n\nKatherine: Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.\n\n \n\nSarah: So in terms of understanding how to ground my work within feminist ethics of care, Deanna and Karis have been there sort of showing me the light <laugh> – and giving me readings!\n\n \n\nKatherine: Yes <laugh> I can imagine that augmenting and building upon your training in library sciences and just really bringing that theoretical richness to the technical skills that you have already. It makes me think too that the way that like redaction works in the archives and say in the print archives or maybe something is redacted. Here you are redacting through audio editing, but the important thing is that you’re keeping that audio somewhere else. Could you explain how that works? How does the audio remain while also being redacted?\n\n \n\nSarah: Yes. This is something that’s really important to me based on my work in archives, I think I may have overly expressed this actually in my talk because it’s so necessary, but transparency is key in every archive. And I now realize it’s not just necessary for the practical reasons that you would – that I generally – think of, but also for ethical reasons.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>.\n\n \n\nSarah: And so I have been working with digitizing audio digitizing the sound box collection, specifically the reel-to-reels at UBCO at the AMP Lab. And that has been – that is my joy. I love, love working with reel-to-reel. It’s actually been really interesting because a lot of people at this conference have been talking about sound as ephemeral. And to me it’s, it’s very physical.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Right\n\n \n\nSarah: It’s attached to this whole, to working with this machine to being so careful with these amazing tapes. And so the way that we are maintaining them is obviously we are keeping the original magnetic tape recordings, very carefully. And they’ve been archived and gently babied because they are – I call them my babies <laugh> – and then also, upon digitizing them, you have to work to a specific. There’s audio specifications – within, that’s just understood – that’s necessary within archival maintenance of digitized recordings. And so you digitize the tape, which means that you play the tape on its original on a playback machine that’s able to do that; put it through a secondary, a mix-preamp or some other secondary source, and then directly into your computer; and you digitize it at a high enough rate and specificity that it sounds almost exactly the same. And in fact, if it’s done to the highest standards, sounds exactly the same. So you can’t differentiate. And then you maintain that. That’s your master access copy, and you do not edit that copy. You save that, and it’s for no one, it <laugh> it exists solely in case of emergency. Really, and then you can make copies of that, and edit them. So what I’m playing with is not the original.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Right, okay.\n\n \n\nSarah: For its own safety. <Laughter> And then you can also save those. Your copied files as lower quality so that you can make them more accessible. Because not everyone has the ability to play wav files.\n\n \n\nKatherine: That makes sense. You have original or the preservation copy and then you’re making the edits on the digital files. I also love what you said about sound as being very, very physical, tangible and just, you know, the way that you described working with these recordings. I think as a last question or reflection. We’ve talked… We’ve moved closer and closer to the sound through our conversation, and I’m wondering if you could speak to the difference between for you, for the difference between editing and leaving silence versus editing and leaving some suggestion of sound, whether that’s visual – looking at the sound waves – or audible in what we’re listening to.\n\n \n\nSarah: I love having both available. I love being able to look at the wave forms and listen to the audio at the same time. They’re visually beautiful and that’s a big part of it, but also it’s sort of, it’s sort of lets you know what to expect, like what’s coming up when you’re looking at the waveform and playing the sound. At the same time. I personally prefer to have ambient sound occurring during the silences, during the redactions, if you want to call them that. I think that it is more implicative of like, the world is still continuing, we’re holding space for this to happen, and just because you can’t hear the words doesn’t mean that the conversation has stopped.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>.\n\n \n\nSarah: So I think that’s really important. I also showed a clip in which I just had the, I had the sound removed, all of the vocals removed. And because the tape that I used didn’t have a lot of ambient noise, it was actually really beautifully recorded. It ended up being essentially silent, in the, in the background of that. But for a lot of archives, if you are listening to tapes that were recorded in loud areas or there’s a lot of background noise, if you do remove the vocals, you’re still going to have all of this delicious background sound. So it’s really as with everything each, each object is, is so unique.\n\n \n\nKatherine: So how do you remove the vocals? What tool do you use?\n\n \n\nSarah: It’s so easy. It’s actually, it’s so – Audacity’s most recent version, which is 3.1.3, and I use Audacity because it’s free and it’s open source software, so it’s always improving. And it’s also available to archives even that have a lot of financial constraints and staffing constraints. There’s literally a tool called Vocal Isolation and Removal, and you just high highlight, that’s it. You just highlights the part that you want. So that’s how it leaves, it leaves the background noise. That’s, Yeah. That, So what, what, what we were listening to in that that middle portion that was background or was that, That was distortion. <Laugh>. That was distortion. So in the, in the final edit that I liked the most, the way that I was able to maintain the sound of the conversation because there was so little background noise was to use a distortion element called the VO coder. And so while I still had the vocals in there, I added the VO coder, which added distortion around the vocals, kind of fuzzed them up a little, and then you remove the vocals, and so the, the sound is still there. It didn’t, I think I expressed this. I need to, I would like to do further work because what I really wanted was sort of a smoother conversation tone where you can hear it you can hear it sounds more like speech. I think I did this in my, in my discussion, but sort of like the Charlie Brown teacher.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Right.\n\n \n\nSarah: That’s what I was going for…\n\n \n\nKatherine: Hearing that intonation of speech up the, the fluctuations up and down it, well, we could hear it a bit there, but it, it’s, Yeah, I can imagine then you’re even more, you’re aware that you’re not hearing something, but you’re also hearing something and you can, you’re – you’re hearing the fluctuations in the conversation, but not the conversation itself, not the content. It’s so important to know that there’s audio there – there are things to listen to – but also that you know, it’s we don’t have to have access to everything. And in fact, ethically it, it’s not right to have access to everything. And so how to be able to make audio accessible, while still respecting that, respecting the communities that the recordings are from, respecting the individuals and the voices on them, on those recordings because it, it so easily the recordings could just get shelved away and they’re then never listened to. So trying to balance that it’s really exciting that you’re, you’re doing this work. When we know that something’s there, it’s also, it’s tempting to want to hear it. And so it, I think what you talked about about uncomfortableness too, it’s also this sense of even catching oneself, being like: Oh, I want to hear it! And then thinking: Well, wait – am I, am I the listener for this? And realizing that actually you’re, you’re maybe not the person. You’re not in that room, you’re not listening, you’re not privy to that conversation. But that, that sort of checking our impulse of wanting to know everything as researchers and recognizing that that is actually that can actually be problematic too.\n\n \n\nSarah: What you’re speaking to is actually a larger archival issue in terms of wanting to have everything.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.\n\n \n\nSarah: And the idea of leaving space was actually something that came out of archival theory surrounding the archive, the capital ‘A’ – Archive – you know, the institution as not necessarily being a place that should have everything. And that, as opposed to maintaining collections that really belong elsewhere, what they should do is hold space and tell researchers: we don’t have that because it doesn’t belong to us. That’s not ours. And so I’ve tried to take that idea of sort of thoughtfulness and space and bring that down to the level of the personal – to the individual – and, and now to audio.\n\n \n\nKatherine: Yes, I think what you’ve, what you’re working on, it is holding space in sound. And thank you for sharing this with me today here live and shortcuts live and with our listeners. So thank you so much, Sarah.\n\n \n\nSarah: Thank you, Katherine. This has been great.\n\n \n\n[Music begins]\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod [Outro]: You’ve been listening to ShortCuts. A special thanks to this month’s guest, Sarah Cipes. Thanks to supervising producer Kate Moffatt, sound designer Miranda Eastwood, and transcriber Kelly Cubbon. ShortCuts is written and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening.\n\n \n\n[Music ends]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9666","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 4.3, ShortCuts Live! Talking with Faith Paré about the Atwater Poetry Project Archives, 20 February 2023, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-talking-with-faith-pare-about-the-atwater-poetry-project-archives/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2023],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/f7991804-23c4-4608-8996-9b9b7fdce603/audio/7eb476a2-d59e-403b-bb78-019d065205d9/default_tc.mp3?nocache\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-4-3.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:26:52\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"25,802,336 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"shortcuts-4-3\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-talking-with-faith-pare-about-the-atwater-poetry-project-archives/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2023-02-20\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["Draft transcript"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"The Atwater Poetry Project, https://www.atwaterlibrary.ca/events/atwater-poetry-project/\\n\\n“Performing the Atwater Poetry Project Archives, guest curated by Katherine McLeod and Klara du Plessis, featuring the sounds of poets from the APP archives,” 20 February 2023, https://spokenweb.ca/events/performing-the-atwater-poetry-project-archive/\\n\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549787508736,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["ShortCuts presents another episode of ShortCuts Live! This month’s episode was recorded as a live conversation on Zoom with the current curator of the Atwater Poetry Project, Faith Paré. As a former SpokenWeb undergraduate RA, Faith’s SpokenWeb contributions have included editorial and curatorial work on Desire Lines; an interview with Kaie Kellough on SPOKENWEBLOG; performing as a spoken word poet in Black Writers Out Loud; leading a virtual listening practice on Black noise; and reading her poetry at SpokenWeb’s “Sounding Undernames” at Blue Metropolis. This is all to say that Faith had a wealth of experience to draw upon when, as a curator, she was handed a folder of poetry recordings.\n\nHow to reactivate the archival past of the Atwater Poetry Project? What is it like to curate the past and future of a reading series? Find out by listening to ShortCuts Live! A conversation with Katherine McLeod and Faith Paré about the Atwater Poetry Project archives.\n\n[Music begins]\n\nKatherine McLeod: Welcome to ShortCuts. This month on ShortCuts, we’re here – live – on Zoom with the Atwater Poetry Project curator Faith Paré. Faith joins me for this conversation to talk about the Atwater Poetry Project archives. These archives are community archives that are being integrated into SpokenWeb in order to preserve them and to make them more discoverable. As part of the Atwater Poetry Project’s programming, Faith reached out to me and Klara du Plessis to see if we’d be interested in curating an event for the Atwater Poetry Project that would activate play and remix the archives in ways that would be both performative and also exploratory. What could we make with these archives? What would it be like to re-listen to clips from this reading series in the very same place in which it has always taken place? Klara and I will be undertaking this performance of the Atwater Poetry Project Archives on the same night that this shortcuts is released. And with all of our conversations about this event with faith, it felt like a shortcuts conversation every time we talked about it. And so I had to get some of those conversations on tape. Hi, Faith, thanks for joining me here today on ShortCuts Live!\n\nFaith Paré: Thanks for having me again, Katherine. It’s really a pleasure.\n\n[Music ends]\n\nKatherine McLeod: Thank you so much. And it really is a ShortCuts Live! By the fact that my three month old daughter is also here with me, and she has already been making a few noises, and she’ll be making some noises throughout. And, for long time ShortCuts listeners, you’ll remember that back in season two, the voice of a poet’s young daughter has already been heard on ShortCuts, so we welcome sounds like that here.\n\nSo, just to give listeners a little bit of background, the Atwater Poetry Project was started by poet Oana Avasilichioaei in 2004. Since then, the series has hosted over 300 poetry readings by established and emerging Canadian poets. The curators of the series have been Avasilichioaei, then it was Katia Grubisic, followed by Darren Bifford, then Simon Jory Steven-Gillie, and Charlotte Harrison, followed by Deanna Radford, then Rachel McCrum. And now you, Faith Paré. What was it like to take on this role as curator of the Atwater Poetry Project? What was most exciting at the start?\n\nFaith Paré: That’s a great question of kind of trying to boil down what the role specifically is because I think by nature and also by the fact that arts administration is so all encompassing and often such a juggle of what you need to do, it changes so often. I think fundamentally it is about trying to listen to your surroundings, I think, and be perceptive to what’s happening,and the different strains of literary existence that are going on around you. And keeping in mind that I am not trying to make it sound too much like following trends but rather trying to kind of put together a larger story of what a poetry scene essentially is – and the different networks and interconnections and entanglements that make that and conflicts. So fundamentally, I think it is about listening, but it’s also about wanting to listen to not only to the kind of literary city around me but also to what people are, might be looking for in the audience as well. But I do have to say it’s a big act to follow coming after, particularly Rachel and the amazing way that she was able to engage, transition, first of all audiences online and then engage them so well. And really try and think about the expansiveness of the online reading form as its own phenomenon, not just as like just something to fill in until we’re back in-person.\n\nKatherine McLeod: You took on the role when it was still online on Crowdcast, which Rachel had started during her time as curator in the Pandemic. And that really was an opportunity to think about the way that the Atwater Poetry Project does always program two readers. So there is this conversation between the two readers, but it seemed that at least to me, that when during Rachel’s curation and then into your curation, there’s really this emphasis on the relationships between those two poets.\n\nFaith Paré: Yeah, totally. And I think it goes back again to the heart of poets are just people, often it’s two poets. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less. It depends on the kind of event. Particularly I’m thinking about a great reading back in January, 2022. One of my first ones with Gillian Sze who, this was a very important reading for me because she, even though this gig was booked before my time, she’s been a long time mentor of mine in poetry as well as Rebecca Păpacaru. And both of them have wanted to read alongside each other for a long time, but hadn’t had the chance. And during that reading, they would actually they started to read work from their books based on what the previous person had done, because there was a line or an image or a theme that reminded them of something that made them go, oh, I’m actually going to change things up a bit, but I think this might actually fit together really well.\n\nAnd I love that quality of being able to kind of echo each other or answer to each other in this very particular environment for the one, one-night-only quality. Another early reading that I organized was with Tolu Oloruntoba, who’s based on the west coast and with Montreal spoken word artist Jason Blackbird, Salman. Both of them work in very different fields, but I thought about their particular kind of tender, quiet thundering, essentially of their voices together for a really long time. And even though they hadn’t met each other before, they checked out each other’s work and were even saying to each other that they felt like there was a really strong resonance there. So that’s, that’s the really exciting thing for me to also bring together strangers and be able to introduce them and be like, it’s kind of like a dinner party or something, <laugh> being able to be like, I know a lot about you two and I think you guys would actually get along. And it’s a really awesome opportunity when you’re right! <Laugh>.\n\nKatherine McLeod: So this takes us to the archives and I’m interested in, you know, what it’s been like as the, you know, the curator of this series to also be handed these archives. What are these archives?\n\nFaith Paré: The APP archives are interesting, I think, for me as a former or SpokenWeb RA, in that they’re all digital. <Laugh>, Which, you know, sounds kind of silly and mundane to say perhaps, but because so much of our work at the research network has been thinking through questions around, you know, how do we take analog materials, sometimes very fragile analog materials, and then transfer them into the digital, the ways that things can be gained, but also lost in that transformation that allows for for more distribution and disperse all those materials discoverability. But what does like the, the materiality of the object also do? Well? These these archives and recording from the beginning were digital. They were done on Zoom recorders. And they were, I think another thing that became a kind of inherited foundational part of the series by accident that somebody else was, when curators started, I’m not even sure exactly who from the timeline that I do have.\n\nI believe Katia Grubisic was the one who was starting to do it more regularly. Though I believe Oana may have also had some recordings as well. This is also part of the journey with this as I’m trying to fill in missing pieces. But basically from what I have, it seems like the series started to be regularly recorded in 2010. This was also really firmly embraced by the library too, in thinking about the Atwater Library and Computer Center’s mandate – their mission is widespread education on digital literacy particularly for working class and elderly communities who are often left behind when it comes to digital literacy education. And also in just the mandate of being a library for the public, making those materials available. And I think it was kind of forward thinking of them, particularly because so much of event culture and the inc excitement of event culture is the one-night-only quality.\n\nYes. But also  the availability of these archival recordings uploaded onto the website after the fact means greater accessibility. It means an archive for the poets or attendees to return to and revisit a means discoverability. It means bolstering a CV, potentially, because you have a recording. It means being able to find a piece that, you know, you were trying to track down. I’m a poet, but you can’t remember the name, and then you stumble across it again in an audio piece. It’s and it’s also being able to capture and preserve the, the interesting experiments of the one night only and be able to reverberate that through time. This collaboration with spoken w will finally allow its these MP3s to get a little bit out of the Montreal bubble and more into a, a national context, especially as we really pride ourselves from about bringing poets from all across the country\n\nKatherine McLeod: That makes me think of times when being at the Atwater readings and hearing, say, Deanna Radford say that, you know, the evening’s being recorded. And it made me think about the extent to which the audience and the poets are aware of the night being recorded, and whether that makes a difference or not. Often when they would say that you know, I’d sort of think to myself, oh, right, it’s being recorded, but I wasn’t very necessarily aware of the recording taking place. And so it’s still, it just felt like that information was there, but I soon forgot <laugh>. And I guess I wondered whether you have any sense, actually maybe the transition online and then back to in person whether there’s a… to what extent does the fact that it’s being recorded influence the event?\n\nFaith Paré: I really love that question. And it, it expands on some of my own thinking that I’ve done with Jason Camlot and Carlos Pittella about some of the new collections at Spoken Web like the Enough Said series which I was working on for a while, alongside Carlos, which is a video collection – one of the first video collections I believe, in the network. We were thinking particularly about the fact that, you know, what, what does this do to the poet’s performance and the way that people carry themselves in the space and also what does it do for I guess the, the person who’s perceiving the event afterward. So we were thinking along, along the lines of the wave Enough Said, for example, was a performance poetry series mostly was really embracing an ethos of spoken word and like a kind of first big wave of, you know, acknowledging different kinds of performed traditions of poetry under a kind of umbrella of spoken word in Montreal.\n\nAnd the fact that was video recorded allowed for people to not only to capture the dynamic choreography that can occur in different performances. You can also see how people are reacting to a work, which is huge. You can perceive what the environment was like in a way that it’s clearly laid out in front of you visually, or sometimes audio-wise, it could be more difficult to perceive, you know, what is that moving? Is that share, is that a desk? Is it getting in the way of something? Is it part of the, the main goings on of, or the stage goings on of the evening? Or is that to the side? It is a different level of information that is being communicated, and it means that people can sometimes be more complicated in what they’re portraying.\n\n: But what I really have loved about audio recording and I think spoken web is really ingrained this in me is the kind of fly on the wall quality that an audio recording has, that I think there is an element just somehow, maybe it’s because in some ways sound isn’t perceived as with the same kind of surveillance quality as the visual in our contemporary period. Sometimes it can, sometimes it’s not perceived in that way. There’s, there’s something about the audio recorder being its own listener too, or maybe the a signal of future listeners to come, it fades comfortably into the background. A of course, you know, there are poets where they may hate the sound of their voice, or maybe they wanna read something that particular night that feels like a risk for them. And they don’t wanna release it for, to the, to the public afterward because they, they wanna keep that private to the, the space that they were in.\n\nOr maybe they are sound practitioners and because sound is their main way of working, they might want to develop a piece and they’re actually like, well, I don’t want to release this audio yet because I might be releasing this piece on a, on a record soon. So those are also ways that audio can have stakes that makes it incompatible with some poet’s practice, and wanting to acknowledge that. But there’s, there’s something about the series where people seem kind of genuinely excited or just maybe just perfectly fine and relieved with having another ear in the room. I think this is also a testament to the way that previous curators have been really gentle and caring and genuine with poets of checking in with what they want to share, what they don’t want to share, like having that ability to go back and forth make that dynamic relationship between curator and poet. Something that doesn’t have to exist as like this permanent archival object forever, you know?\n\nAnd I think there is an interesting switch when the pandemic happened and Crowdcast became the main platform for the APP, which now was involved, you know a level of intimacy for a lot of people of you are not on the same kind of level of engagement, I guess, in that you can’t see the audience staring back at you, at least on the Crowdcast platform. You are kind of alone with your screen and the other poets and the curator who may also be on screen, and depending on person you are who might hate that, it cuts off, you know, your body from like, you know, your chest to your head. So if you are, or you’re someone who does a lot of choreography in your work, you might reasonably be frustrated.\n\nIf you play instrumentation enjoying your work, you might recently be frustrated, but you also might feel more confident in if you’re a quieter person, you worried about, if you worry about being perceived, if, like the idea of a, a full house freaks you out, being able to have your work listened to and appreciated, but without the pressure of having pairs of eyes look at you might also be a relief and a welcome kind of gesture. I think what I’ve been learning more and more about this down this curation journey is like, there is really no perfect way of being able to host an event, but also to document an event even in a live event because of the kinds of people you could be leaving out that there are so many people who want to be, be able to enjoy poetry, but we’re unable for different ways and different ways and means.\n\n: So there’s no perfect way of documenting these, but how do you contend with the particular stakes, challenges and materials that you have? But I do have to say, being able to be back in the auditorium, and particularly with the sound recorder is something that I’ve personally really enjoyed just because of the way that the, the sound recorder can be a little less intimidating than like, perhaps a big DSLR lens in your face that a videographer and big camera recording equipment in the space might do.\n\nKatherine McLeod: I think a video can sometimes almost give this illusion as if, as if this is what it looked like if you were there. And in fact, no, it only looked like that to that one field of vision going through that camera lens. And I love how audio we’re so, we’re just so aware that we’re getting, we’re getting sound, we’re getting a sense of the room, the voices, but there’s so much that we also are not hearing and we’re not seen, and we’re not sensing, we’re not feeling, and that because we’re so aware of those, the lack of that we also don’t trick ourselves into thinking that we have everything. And I think that’s something when listening to the recordings that I was certainly, I was drawn to recordings that really you could almost hear the room and you could almost hear the, whether it’s like kind of the, the, the voice echoing through the room or else moments of, of applause or laughter or the poets directly speaking to the audience. And even still in those moments when listening, we have to do a lot of work in order to really imagine what it would be like to be there listening. And here I’m thinking about, there’s a moment when Tawhida Tanya Evanson speaks directly to the audience from her reading in 2016…\n\nArchival audio of Tawhida Tanya Evanson, from the Atwater Poetry Project, 2016:\n\nApplause is this crazy habit we have, and it’s a beautiful thing, but maybe just a moment of silence with the eyes closed can also be beautiful. If you’ll indulge, if you’ll indulge me, please close your eyes for a moment and just take a deep breath on your own. [Deep breath.]\n\nKatherine McLeod: Suddenly we’re then imagining that room and we’re imagining that space and what it would’ve looked like and felt like to be there. A last question here is, what’s next? What’s next for the Atwater Poetry Project archives? What are some of the next steps?\n\nFaith Paré: So I think at this point, I’ve collated the best I can in a version one, essentially of the files that we have. And part of my personal next steps is to be able to knock on the doors digital doors, but also possibly literal doors of previous curators looking for missing digital files or things that were linked on the website, but broken. So I have currently <laugh>, you know, I, I have about all just around 200 readings just so far recordings from from 2010 to the present. And there are still a lot more that are to be, you know, found or collated or at least declared, never recorded or pote like lost and, you know, we’ll see if it ever comes up again. But I think, you know, next steps are really to allow the, the Montreal team to, to give the, the files more of a listen, you know, you and Clara have been the people to really take a most of a listen to ’em so far.\n\nBut to be able to have more fresh ears on it and think about our approaches of how do we want to make this discoverable and how do we want to continue animating these recordings? What is important to transcribe and document and these recordings? And even just thinking about like, the fact that previously these were there, there was a kind of mixture of how, like these recordings were categorized by both, by both pe like the people who are reigning, but also kind of by event. I think also one thing that is important to me as I, you know, I think about where we go next is the ways, or the ways that, how do we bring in poets who have animated our space and acknowledge the kind of work that they, they have done, and and the way that they have made the series into what it is today.\n\nThat’s why I feel really excited about this project, particularly and your performative performed curation digging back into the archives, I think one thing I said really early on is that I don’t want this to feel like just some kind of like, narrow celebration of the E p p, you know it’s really important to me that this is a kind of laboratory for, you know, ex exploring the ways that poetry can sound different presences, but also the ways that others are silenced or muted. And the ways that, you know, I think as a reading series, I, I wanna believe that my job is perhaps complimentary, but also different from the role of like the publishing industry, for example. The publishing industry particularly is interested in having a new kind of cohort of people who are brought to the table with new work every year.\n\nAnd that’s all great and fantastic. We all love new work, but also wanting to think about who has been at the table with us for a while. I think, you know, one of the most genuinely moving emails that we’ve, we’ve gone so far was a message from Gerry Shikatani, who is an amazing Japanese Canadian writer, sound performer, experimentalist – also food writer and critic – and that we’ve had different scholars at Spoken Web right on his work, and it was brought to my attention by you and Klara that you wanted to weave his work into this piece and writing him for permissions and seeing how genuinely touched he was to be involved in this work that he said, paraphrasing, that he was really honoured, that people were still thinking about the kind of work that he was doing, you know, over a decade ago was something that felt important to me, really struck at the heart of what I want a reading series to do, that it’s not just a, a space for people to pass through, but really a place of return, of being able to come back and think about work, think about community, think about previous writers who have impacted us.\n\nKatherine McLeod: What a generative approach to the archive and to the series. Thank you so much for, for talking about it in this short, short conversation – ShortCuts Live!\n\n[Music begins]\n\nFaith Paré: Thank you. And I’m, I’m really hoping that folks may be able, if they are in Montreal, to come out to your event debuting this engagement with the archive on Monday, February 20th 7:00 PM the Adair Auditorium at the Atwater Library and Computer Center. It will be in the show notes, I’m sure I will, I will send all the appropriate deeds. Hopefully we will also have it recorded in some kind of way for that preservation as well, and to also add this into its own kind of archival place too. So I really appreciate being here and I really appreciate your work so far on this. Thank you so much.\n\nKatherine McLeod: Thank you so much. Faith.\n\n[Music ends]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9667","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 4.4, ShortCuts Live! 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The SpokenWeb Podcast, 2 May 2022, https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/academics-on-air/.\\n\\n“‘A Voice of One’s Own’: Making (Air)Waves about Gendered Language in 1980s Campus Radio.” Presentation by Ariel Kroon, Nick Beauchesne, and Chelsea Miya. SpokenWeb Symposium 2022: The Sound of Literature in Time, a Graduate Symposium. Concordia University, 16 May 2022.\\n\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549788557312,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This month, ShortCuts presents another ShortCuts Live! It is a conversation with Ariel Kroon, Nick Beauchesne, and Chelsea Miya about their collaboration in producing “Academics on Air” (May 2022) for The SpokenWeb Podcast. That episode became a paper that Ariel, Nick, and Chelsea co-presented at the 2022 SpokenWeb Symposium and Institute. After that presentation, ShortCuts producer Katherine McLeod sat down with Ariel, Nick, and Chelsea around a microphone in the SpokenWeb Amp Lab at Concordia University. They talked about processes of collaboration and archival listening that shaped their work. Starting with one audio clip as the short ‘cut’ that caught their attention in the archives, they talk about about context of that clip in the Voiceprint archives, the potential for podcasting to be a radical act of unarchiving, and what makes recordings of a radio show a unique task for cataloguers working with literary sounds recordings, and much more.\n\n[Music]\n\nKatherine McLeod: This month, ShortCuts presents another ShortCuts Live! It is a conversation with Ariel Kroon, Nick Beauchesne, and Chelsea Miya about their collaboration in producing the episode “Academics on Air” for The SpokenWeb Podcast. That episode was released in May 2022. And that episode became a paper that they co-presented at the SpokenWeb Symposium and Institute also in May 2022. After that presentation, I sat down with Ariel, Nick, and Chelsea around a microphone in the SpokenWeb Amp Lab at Concordia University. We talked about the collaboration and archival listening that shaped their work. Starting with one audio clip as the short ‘cut’ that caught their attention in the archives, they talk about about context of that clip in the Voiceprint archives, the potential for podcasting to be a radical act of unarchiving, and what makes recordings of a radio show a unique task for cataloguers working with literary sounds recordings, and much more. Plus we hear three collaborators finally talking, and laughing, in the same room together. You can hear a bit of the room’s hum but hey that’s all part of ShortCuts Live!…\n\n \n\n[Music ends]\n\nKatherine McLeod: Just as you’re talking, I was like, oh this sounds great. I’m –.\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne, Ariel Kroon, Chelsea Miya: <laugh> <laugh>.\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: Oh good!\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: Check the –\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: Just pull a Jars and just turn it on and just start interviewing before we know it\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: Yeah, exactly….\n\n \n\nChelsea Miya: Right.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod:I’m going do the same thing that I have done for the other ones that I’ve done this week, which is actually go into “podcast voice” to do the opening <laugh>. I feel like somehow you need headphones to go into podcast voice…\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: Yeah.\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: You gotta put it on… as part of the suit.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: Exactly. <laugh> <laugh> I’m going stay present with you, with the three of you here… So, we’ll start…\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: Welcome to Shortcuts. On this ShortCuts, we’re recording live at the SpokenWeb Sound Institute. I’d like to thank Chelsea and Ariel and Nick for joining me on this Shortcuts Live! We’re recording this one in the AMP Lab on the sixth floor of the Library Building at Concordia University. We’re surrounded by audio equipment and silence… So thank you for joining me. Would you like to just say hello and introduce yourself on the mic? Go ahead, Nick.\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: Hello, I’m Nick Beauchesne. I teach at TRU in Kamloops and the University of Alberta in Edmonton.\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: Hi, I’m Ariel Kroon. I am an RA on the SpokenWeb U Alberta team.\n\n \n\nChelsea Miya: I’m Chelsea Miya, and I’m a postdoc at U Alberta with SpokenWeb.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: Thank you. So the three of you just presented a paper this week at the SpokenWeb Symposium and the audio clip that we’ll be listening to today and we’ll be using to inform and guide our conversation is a clip that you played in that presentation. So, to start our conversation, I’d like to play that clip and to listen to it together.\n\n \n\nArchival Audio: [Sound quality makes it audible that archival audio is playing.] A main issue that I’m concerned with, especially as it relates to language, is what kinds of assumptions do people have about sex rules that they don’t recognize? And language is a tremendous carrier of those assumptions, but we don’t know how to self-examine them. Yes, people are beginning to realize that there is a male culture, there’s a female culture, and culture and language are terribly intertwined. But the question is, where have we not even learned how to look and where is it that people are resisting looking? I mean, if you say to somebody, the pronouns you use say tremendous amounts about your beliefs and your culture, people will laugh at you.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: Alright, so could you tell me and listeners what we’re listening to?\n\n \n\nChelsea Miya: So, that was a clip from the Voiceprint episode, “A Room and a Voice of One’s Own.” Voice Print was a campus radio show that was produced between, I think, 1979 to 83, 84, so about four or five years. It was hosted and produced by a student, Jars Balan, who was in the English Department at that time and was really embedded in poetry culture and all the really cool scholarship and creative works that were happening at University of Alberta. There’s also a bit of background about the history of campus radio at that time, which is really cool, and which we talk about a lot in our podcast episode. But what we actually came to present on was this specific episode on women’s voices and on gendered language, which really stood out to us, all of us when we were listening to the archive and to that episode in particular.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: Yeah, well, I was just going to add to that we are recording this in an English department – we’re recording a podcast in an English department – and that radio show was made through an English department. Yes, but, you were saying in the presentation, it wasn’t recorded in an English department?\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: No, it was actually Jars’s studio was in the basement of the biology building on the University of Alberta campus. And it was not just the basement – it was the basement below the basement. So they were down quite a ways and he talked about how guests found it very odd, and a little bit intimidating, to go visit him there, and so they would try to put them at ease, and that was just very, very cool for all of us to hear.\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: That was a clip from Jo-Ann Kolmes, and she came on as a guest. She was working as an editor for academic papers. I think maybe an academic journal. And so she was really talking about her practice of feminist editing at the time, and we were so fascinated by what she had to say because it struck us as very resonant and relevant to discussions that are all around us today. And though, back in 1981, they were definitely still talking about gender firmly within the binary of he/she, and, and now we have recognized and there is a linguistic recognition of – that there’s much more out there than the binary, and so language is adapting to that. So we found that extremely fascinating, the way that it speaks to issues today.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod:Yeah. And especially how it came out of feminist editing, as you said. That seems to resonate. [as] even in this conference, we heard a paper by Sarah Cipes talking about feminist editing in audio. And so it’s really interesting that Joanne’s thinking about this was coming from the perspective of editing. You’ve now done a presentation on this audio clip and the Voiceprint recordings that it’s from – the Voiceprint Radio show, that it’s from – you have made a podcast episode for The SpokenWeb Podcast. You’ve attended a listening party for that episode. I’m wondering, for the three of you, what has really stood out in those experiences?\n\n \n\nChelsea Miya: I think for me, like what really stood out was… the pleasures and joys and frustrations of working collaboratively with Nick and Ariel and how great it was to do something other than an academic paper, especially after two years of being in isolation, sequestered in my room doing, finishing my dissertation. I’m sure like a lot of people in various professions, but in academia especially it’s isolating being a grad student at any time but during COVID it was especially so. Being able to like have the three of us be brought together for this project was so much fun. And I got so much like energy and like inspiration from, from their different ideas and from learning how to work with people who have different ideas about audio and, and we, all of us brought different, I think, strengths and and perspectives to the experience.\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: I think –\n\n \n\nChelsea Miya: Go ahead.\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: Yeah, no, I, I think it was very interesting because, as you mentioned, for grad students, especially of English literature, we’re not used to working with other people. And so it was very eye-opening to work on what is traditionally a solitary endeavour along with other people. But then have the added complicated factor of we were all in different provinces–\n\n \n\nChelsea Miya: Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: – while we were putting this together. And so we couldn’t, well, we could, we could meet on Zoom simultaneously, but we couldn’t be in the same space editing audio together. And we couldn’t just – I couldn’t just look over and say: Hey Nick, do you mind if I do this and this and this to this clip? Or Hey Chelsea, what do you think about my research into such and such? You know, it was very collaborative and yet at the same time not collaborative because it was so difficult to work with that space between us. And so I was really glad that we were all here together finally at the SpokenWeb conference.\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: Yeah, I’ve never presented a paper with like other co-authors before – and we split our paper so to read different sections, but also our different roles. Ariel did a lot of like the research and tracking down of documents and tracking down audio clips and that sort of stuff. Chelsea did a lot of like the main kind of composition for our script for like the podcast, and I did a lot of the technical stuff for the editing. I’ve never really been responsible for this. I’m just a useless singer. I’m used to – so for me to step back from, from the limelight and do more technical behind the scenes work as part of the podcast was fun, but also reading the paper, sharing that with other people. And then we all wrote the paper together. So that felt a little more kind of balanced in the sense that our roles maybe weren’t as specialized as they were for the podcast.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: So that was a really great experience.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: Yeah, I was interested in that too. The way that often collaboration, um, might take the form of, um, of an article that you write together, but in this case, the first thing that you made together was a podcast episode… And then maybe the paper was closer to maybe a print based –\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: – publication. That’s interesting to hear sort of the roles shifting or how that work pans out and it’s shared.\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: Well, you know, Klara, Jason, if you’re making a book, call me, call us!\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: Yes, it’s possible that you might be collaboratively writing an article <laugh> as the next step of this, which is exciting because it shows how these ideas started in a podcast episode of scholarly research and it will eventually take the form of a print article. Often the print article gets put on a hierarchy above the other, but if you hadn’t made one, you couldn’t get to that other stage. I think starting with the podcast too allowed you to really dive into the sound and think about multiple sound clips and also really reflect on what the podcast is doing as academic scholarship. Which I think you all did so brilliantly in the episode and also in the Listening Party too, really reflecting on what you are doing as academics in making this podcast alongside reflecting on what those who made Voiceprint were doing within an academic institution, which is really a fascinating parallel.\n\n \n\nChelsea Miya: Yeah. It’s interesting too, like podcasting as this sort of radical act of de-archiving, in that we talk a lot about close listening at SpokenWeb, but I mean – and you do that when you’re doing like time codes and timestamps – but to create something from that, you really listen to it and it becomes like part of you, you ingest it and create something out of it in a way that you don’t necessarily do when you’re doing the sort of laborious, tedious work of digitizing something and creating metadata for it. So, and which is good and valuable work, but it can sometimes be like monkey work in that the focus is more on like doing the sort of repetitive tedious tasks that are removed from actual thoughtful intellectual engagement with your materials. And doing this podcast was a way, I think, at least for me, it felt like so great to be engaging with the material in a different way.\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: Yeah. Those repetitive, tedious tasks definitely prepared us for doing all that we needed to do for this podcast in terms of close listening and honestly just in terms of discovering that it was there at all. When I first joined SpokenWeb, I started digitizing these radio shows, and at that time we didn’t really have any sort of schema for digitizing them because all of the sort of like accepted practices were for poetry readings. And so I was there as this new RA looking at what had been done before and saying: None of this fits, none of these categories work for this. Oh no, what, what do I do with it? And so it started as this problem. And only later was I, or were we, sort of able to get a little bit more deep into the sound of it and the content of that sound.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: Mm-hmm <affirmative>\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: It’s surprising and incredible in how generative the material is. So you start off, yeah. So I mean, I did a lot of time-stamping before I did anything intellectual and fun, like what we just did. And it’s like, you know, you listen to all, like, first of all, going to the archive to discover this stuff at the University of Albert Alberta archives, which is where we found this, not from the English department closet, like most of our other stuff, so it’s a different archive. We have to track it down. I have to make an acquisition list. Mike approves it. We get the material, it goes to digitization, we get it, we split it in three. So we all time-stamp different episodes of Voiceprint, and that’s when we all kind of fell in love with the show <laugh> and became fans.\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: And then from there, yeah, then you go to making a podcast episode, doing ShortCuts, making, writing a paper, presenting that paper. And it just keeps growing and growing, growing. I mean, we interviewed Jars, we interviewed Terri Wynnyk – his production assistant and a female sound tech, which is very rare for radio shows in the eighties – we interviewed all Brian Fateaux, Stacey Copeland –\n\n \n\nChelsea Miya: Jennifer Waits\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: Yeah. We interviewed all these people. We got hours of the interview footage and, and most of it wasn’t used, but it just expands and expands.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: And the conversations with all those people that all came from the archival listening that you were doing. Also, I love the fact that Voiceprint brought you together, <laugh>. I think that’s – I was wondering how you had it first encountered these archival recordings. And so that’s really beautiful hearing that. And also, um, the way that Voiceprint as a radio show was also so embedded within literary communities and just really a show that had so many writers on – and that was something I was really struck by, in listening to the podcast episode, and I can only imagine how many more conversations could come out of the Voiceprint archive –.\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod: – around the recordings of writers and conversations. It also sounded very much like interdisciplinary work too, like talking to people, you know, across disciplines and inviting them into that studio and having those conversations. So I’m excited to hear what else comes out of the Voiceprint archives. So I think that’s a good note to conclude our conversation for today. And also I’m so thrilled that, here, around this microphone, these three collaborators are finally together in person after all your work across distances. So, Chelsea, Ariel, Nick, thank you so much for joining me here on Shortcuts. Thank you all.\n\n \n\nAriel Kroon: Thank you.\n\n \n\nNick Beauchesne: Thank you.\n\n \n\nChelsea Miya: Thanks.\n\n \n\n[Music]\n\nKatherine McLeod: You’ve been listening to ShortCuts. This ShortCuts was a ShortCuts Live! A conversation with Ariel Kroon, Nick Beauchesne, and Chelsea Miya recorded on May 19 2022 on-site at the SpokenWeb Symposium and Institute. Fun fact: we were wearing our SpokenWeb t-shirts that we had been given that day at the institute while recording. Check the Show Notes for photos to prove it! Also check the show notes for a link to their episode, “Academics on Air.” Plus, since talking with Ariel, Nick, and Chelsea, they have interviewed Jo-Anne Kolmes, and a few clips from that interview could be the start of another ShortCuts Live conversation recorded at this year’s symposium and institute. \n\nSpeaking of which, are you listening to this episode and getting excited about this year’s SpokenWeb Symposium? It is coming up in May at the University of Alberta. Check SpokenWeb’s upcoming events to find the link to the full program. And, who knows, there just may be ShortCuts Live recordings happening again this year, and so if you’re attending and interested in talking with the podcast team, let us know! Write to us at spokenwebpodcast at gmail dot com.\n\nShortCuts is a monthly deep dive into archival audio distributed monthly on The SpokenWeb Podcast feed. It is mixed and mastered by Miranda Eastwood, transcribed by Zoe Mix, and written and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening.\n\n[Music ends]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9668","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 4.5, ShortCuts Live! Talking with Annie Murray, 17 April 2023, McLeod and Murray"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-talking-with-annie-murray/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod","Annie Murray"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod","Annie Murray"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]},{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/31170924535890151440\",\"name\":\"Annie Murray\",\"dates\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2023],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/54d2865f-0a03-4493-b0f6-f541a9b2f8ea/audio/0e9e1180-9c79-4de3-923f-16827371bc77/default_tc.mp3?nocache\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"sc4-5.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:19:17\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"18,510,202 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"sc4-5\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-talking-with-annie-murray/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2023-04-17\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"EMI Music Canada fonds, https://asc.ucalgary.ca/emi-music-canada-fonds/\\n\\nVan Dyk, Leah and Murray Annie. “Audio Time Travel: An Interview with Annie Murray.” SPOKENWEBLOG, 15 December, 2022, https://spokenweb.ca/audio-time-travel-an-interview-with-annie-murray/\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549789605888,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This month, ShortCuts presents another ShortCuts Live! Producer Katherine McLeod talks with Annie Murray about the EMI Music Canada Archives at the University of Calgary, and their way into these archives begins with a cassette tape. And not just any cassette tape. Listen to find out which tape and how this tape tells stories of recording not only in relation to what’s on the tape but also to archival collections of Canadian music. Audio objects are sonic objects in the sounds they hold and the stories they tell – both on their own as materials and in our affective attachments to them – and this episode of ShortCuts dives into all of this, and more. Annie and Katherine’s conversation about archives is full of whimsy, suspense, and even the sounds of a power ballad – yes, archival research can sound like this.\n\n\n(00:03)\tAnnie Murray \tSo what do you wanna talk about? [Laughs] \n(00:05)\tKatherine McLeod\tWell, first I’ll say: Welcome to ShortCuts.\n(00:11)\tShortCuts Theme Music \t[Soft piano music interspersed with electronic sound begins]\n(00:12)\tKatherine McLeod \tWelcome to Shortcuts. This month, it’s another ShortCuts Live. In fact, it’s a final ShortCuts Live conversation that was recorded at the 2022 SpokenWeb Symposium and Institute. That’s because this year’s symposium and institute is coming up, starting May 1st. Check the full program by heading to the events link on the SpokenWeb website. And if you’re attending, do get in touch if you’d like to chat with us on ShortCuts Live in-person this year. \nBack to this episode, it’s a conversation that I had with Annie Murray from the University of Calgary. It was recorded after a packed day of sessions at the 2022 SpokenWeb Sound Institute. The sounds will take us into 4th SPACE at Concordia University. I quite love the background noise because it reminds me of being there with the May sunshine outside the window next to where we were recording and the vibrant conversations that we were having all week. \nSo there I was sitting at a microphone with Annie Murray and I pulled out a cassette tape to start things off. Usually on ShortCuts, it’s an audio clip that starts the conversation. This time it was not an audio clip, but rather an audio object, and not just any audio object. It was my first cassette tape, and this cassette tape that I’m holding right now, well, it’s not only the start of me loving music that’s just so full of emotion, music that is moving, moves you and makes you want to move, but it was also the start of my conversation with Annie Murray about EMI Music Canada Archives. Which tape is it? Well, listen to find out. Here is ShortCuts Live…\n[ShortCuts theme music fades and ends]\n[Transitions into interview recording]\nThank you so much, Annie, for joining me on Shortcuts Live.\n(02:04)\tAnnie Murray\tThank you. This is a great setup.\n(02:07)\tKatherine McLeod\tAnd I’m about to take a tape out of my bag, and Annie’s gonna see this for the first time, but she’s heard that this is the object that will inspire our conversation.\n(02:19)\tAnnie Murray\tWhoa, shall I describe what we’re seeing?\n(02:22)\tKatherine McLeod \tYes. Take a look. What is this tape?\n(02:25)\tAnnie Murray \tKatherine has just handed me a tape called “Over 60 Minutes with Luba”. Luba is on the front. It was issued by Capital Records and EMI Canada in 1987. We had an earlier conversation where I learned this was a seminal tape for young Dr. Katherine McLeod. And the reason I’m interested in her relationship with this tape is because I’ve been working on a project that will bring some Luba content out in the world.\n(03:03)\tKatherine McLeod \tYes, I told Annie that this Luba tape was in fact the first cassette tape that I ever owned. I think I was about seven or eight years old living in Queensboro, which is a neighborhood in New Westminster, British Columbia. And I don’t even know how I had heard of Luba, I think, because I never really watched TV very often when I was young. So somehow much music must have been on. And I was really drawn to the song, “Every time I see your picture, I cry”. And this tape does have it on there.  I think that says a lot about me as a seven year old, that I was really drawn to this very dramatic song, that continues. I feel like it just, I love very dramatic music and dance. So, you know, this was just an early sign of that.\nI could still probably recite the entire song. And I recently found this tape at my parents’ house, and it made me think about the way that this recording, with it being issued by EMI, would be part of the EMI collection. And when Annie was speaking about the EMI collection in a SpokenWeb meeting, she mentioned, you know, it even has Luba. And I was like, oh, Luba! Yes, someone’s talking about Luba! \nSo I thought this would be a perfect  audio object for us to chat about because it brings us into the EMI collection. It makes us think about audio objects and how just a tape that we’re not even playing right now can generate so much conversation. And it can also make us think about rights too. So maybe towards the end, I’ll ask you about, you know, can we even play this tape on the podcast? But, we’ll hold onto that question. \nFirst of all, you know, I see Annie looking at the tape cover, she’s got it out of the, out of the case. And I’m wondering, you know, you’ve been immersed in the EMI collection at the University of Calgary.  What do you, what are you noticing? How does this speak to you as an archival object?\n(05:11)\tAnnie Murray \tWell, what’s interesting about this tape is it’s not one of Luba’s studio albums. It’s a compilation album. So, Luba had already released some albums, and this is a compilation. The other thing I’m noticing is in what great physical condition it’s in. I know you loved it a lot, but you also took really good care of it. A lot of my old tapes from this era,  the writing is rubbed off the cassette, but the tape looks in good shape and the liner notes don’t have the lyrics, which a lot of studio albums did. And I don’t know about you, but did you used to open them up and follow along?\n(05:53)\tKatherine McLeod\tI sure did. [Laughs] Yeah.\n(05:54)\tAnnie Murray\tYes. That, I mean, especially when you first got tapes of your own and you bought them with your own money, you were so proud of them, and you would open up the liner notes and follow the lyrics. So what I’m seeing here, there’s some interesting things about this album. First of all, Daniel Lenoi plays as a percussionist on this album. There’s some really interesting musicians brought in on some of these. And guess who’s the sax player? Kenny G! [Both laugh]  And then there’s a list of tracks or songs, and there’s little symbols next to them that talk about the original recording, where it came from. \nSo this is like an anthology. And then some were mixed by Daniel Lenoi, then it shows how many songs Luba wrote and how many she didn’t. So this is, this is fascinating.\n(06:56)\tKatherine McLeod\tI love thinking about it as an anthology of Luba. Luba is a Canadian singer who was very popular in the eighties. And we really haven’t heard much from since. So, actually, it’s interesting how things, you know, like YouTube. I think like, partly just to go back to your point about how the tape is in such good condition, I think it’s because then when CDs came out, I didn’t listen to my tapes as much, and Luba sort of had faded into the background. \nSo, I’d almost forgotten about this amazing song. And then, recently, you know, searching it on YouTube and thinking, yeah, like, I can listen to this in a digital version without having to, you know, dig out my tape from so long ago. And just listening to it again, I thought, wow, this  almost like, power ballad song, really resonates with today’s moment too.\nSo I thought, yes, Lupa to come back, but then thinking, you know, this is like this anthology and this collection, a collection within a collection thinking of this tape itself is almost like a collection. And how it also speaks to, you know, this moment in Canadian music. And, you know, as you’re noticing all these artists that were part of this tape, that in many ways many people probably would know those names and not necessarily know Luba’s name too. So that’s really interesting thinking of what we can learn from the tape itself. I know you told me that you asked some of your colleagues in the archives about what you have in terms of Luba’s work in the collection.\n(08:26)\tAnnie Murray\tThat’s right. So, maybe just as I recorded my live reactions to the liner notes, I’ll read you some information that my colleagues David Jones and Rob Gilbert provided.  I explained what I was going to be up to and that you were a Luba fan from childhood and that we’d be looking at the tape and they immediately knew, oh, well that’s a compilation, you know, and I, cuz I didn’t know. \nAnd then David said, that’s awesome. So is Luba. And then Rob came along and said a few things that I’ll just read. So Luba was a direct signing. So the capital releases, the EP and the three big albums in the eighties are all extensively documented. So in the EMI Music Canada archive that’s at the University of Calgary, if that artist was signed to Capital or EMI, the archive will contain all of the original studio recordings and will have all the documentation about how that album was produced, how it was recorded, produced, disseminated, marketed and received.\nSo it’s like the whole story, but if the EMI artist was someone like Kate Bush or The Beatles or Pink Floyd, and they weren’t actually recorded in the, for Canadian, like on the Canadian label there would be less recordings and material associated with it. All of those originals would’ve been in England or in the United States. But for Luba, Rob says, I think Luba is one of the more significant artists in the collection. All of the audio is migrated or out with a vendor and/or Nathan. So Nathan Chandler is our audio audiovisual conservator who, in Calgary, we built these studios. So sometimes some types of formats, we’ve migrated them right there in Calgary. Other ones have been sent out in different places in North America, depending on like, would it be too expensive to buy the equipment or too difficult or maybe there aren’t enough recordings in that format because the EMI archive has 94 different media formats.\nSo some of them wouldn’t make sense. But guess how many individual Luba recordings will be available eventually? There will be 400 audio recordings [Katherine laughs] available to users eventually in an online system. So the system we’re using is called Cortex. It’s a digital asset management system. Rob goes on to say all of the quarter inch tapes are done. The half inch tapes were sent out to a vendor last summer and should be done soon. And many of the two inch tapes are on a cart with Nathan waiting to get to them. So even in the time Luba was recording, she first recorded on quarter inch, then half inch, and then on two inch multi-tracks. So even in her eighties, early nineties career, she recorded on these different formats. So. \n(11:58)\tKatherine McLeod\tThat’s incredible! [Laughs]\n(11:59)\tAnnie Murray \tThen all told there are 400 of them because like, say a two inch recording, it’s massive. You might have one to three songs on one reel. And so if you think of how many times you would record something to make an album, that’s why there are so many. So then, let’s see, also, any videos associated with Luba will also become available. So it’s audio, but it’s also video. And then, this won’t be put online or you won’t be able to access this, but there was also all the original artwork that they used to make all the album covers. So that has also been preserved for the Canadian artists such as Luba. \nSo, let’s see. There are whole sets of studio sessions, 24 track tapes and mixes on half inch tapes. The 60 Minutes with compilation is like a “best of” album with a couple extras on it. It was a branded series from Capital, maybe tapping into CD technology, having the ability to play over 60 minutes without switching sides of a tape or a record [laughs]. \nSo there’s gonna be a lot of Luba content that researchers can access. So you could explore the documentation around wow was that album produced there in your hand? How were the other studio albums? Her EP? I don’t know if they would’ve had a demo, but we would be able to find out if there was a demo. So it kind of goes to show the extensive documentation, both audio, video, and then there’s all the textual archives that would’ve been, so perhaps you’ll come to Calgary to do a deep Luba research trip? \n(13:50)\tKatherine McLeod \tYes. Yes. A deep listening in the Luba archives. I also love how it feels like Luba, you know, I was speaking to like maybe she could have a resurgence and maybe she could have a resurgence through the archives.\n(14:03)\tAnnie Murray \tThat would be great. Like, it will be interesting to see how people respond to an archive of this type being made available. Like, first of all, the fact that it’s being preserved, that it is in a public institution, and that we have created some secure and elaborate, but easily available ways to use audiovisual archives, which really isn’t always the case. \nThe traditional model is if there’s a recording in an archive, you travel to the archive and you listen to it in there. We knew that with the way systems have developed and the way digital asset management systems have developed, that you can still have users authenticate and use a recording and access it remotely. And in the time that we’ve been finishing up this project during Covid, there is actually more expectation of remote access now of archives and libraries. So these sort of systems coming online is just perfect timing for these kinds of researcher expectations.\n\n(15:17)\tKatherine McLeod \tMaybe one last question then, leading along those lines around access. On a podcast like this, if I were to play a clip of one of Luba’s songs,  am I allowed to do that?\n(15:34)\tAnnie Murray\tI think so. I think it’s a kind of quotation. We could ask a copyright person about how much is appropriate. But say for example, like broadcasters and news organizations, they generally work with clips of a certain length for reporting, and then scholars can use certain lengths of clips for their academic reporting, so to speak. I don’t know where a podcast is on the spectrum. Is it broadcasting? Is it news? Is it scholarship? Seems to be a blend of those things?\n(16:10)\tKatherine McLeod \tAnd often defined by the producer or the maker of the podcast, rather than the podcast itself being a medium that is defined in those ways. I feel like because we did, you know, we’ve been commenting on the tape and especially offering a bit of commentary around one particular song, that that song perhaps could, you know, appear at some point, audibly in this or- \n(16:37)\tAnnie Murray\tA clip.\n(16:37)\tKatherine McLeod \tA clip. Exactly. It would just a, just a-\n(16:39)\tAnnie Murray\tMaybe the most dramatic part.\n(16:40)\tKatherine McLeod \tExactly. [A clip from “Every time I see your picture, I cry” by Luba plays and ends] \nSo I think that’s, you know, a perfect note to end on. And I want to thank Annie Murray for joining me here on ShortCuts Live in 4th SPACE at Concordia University. Thank you so much, Annie.\n\n(17:12)\tAnnie Murray \t[ShortCuts theme music begins to play] \nThank you. And I just wanna extend an invitation. As a Luba fan, you could create, when you have an account in the University of Calgary’s digital collections, you could create something called a light box where you could keep track of your favorite Luba recordings, and then you could say, Hey, these are my favorite Luba tracks curated by Dr. Katherine McLeod.\nSo, then even if you return later and you’re like, oh, I’m going to think about Luba again. You could keep track of what you’re interested in. You could send it to another user, then they could sign it and say, oh, these are the three songs that most shaped your 1987 life. \n(17:57)\tKatherine McLeod \tYes! A curated listening and yeah. To be able to share that. Oh, yeah. That’s fantastic.\n(18:01)\tAnnie Murray\tSo, when it’s available, I’ll contact you and you can be our guest digital curator of the Luba Collection. [laughs]\n(18:11)\tKatherine McLeod\tThank you so much, Annie. I look forward to that. Thank you. Thank you.\n[ShortCuts theme music ends] \n[A clip from “Every time I see your picture, I cry” by Luba plays] \nYou’ve been listening to ShortCuts. A special thanks to Annie Murray for joining me for this ShortCuts Live recorded on May 19th, 2022. \n[The Luba clip ends and ShortCuts theme music begins again] \nAnd for the invitation to head to Calgary for a curated listening in the archives. Do check the show notes for links to more about that archive, and for a few fun photos to accompany this episode. Yes, you’ll see Annie holding the tape itself, and what you won’t see is me listening to Luba on repeat in the weeks surrounding this conversation. But indeed that happened too. \nMy thanks to the SpokenWeb podcast team. Our supervising producer is Kate Moffatt. Our sound designer is Miranda Eastwood. And our transcription is done by Zoe Mix. ShortCuts is written and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Stay tuned next month for a full episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast. And as always, thanks for listening.\n[ShortCuts theme music ends]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9669","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 4.6, What’s that noise? Listening Queerly to the Ultimatum Festival Archives, 19 June 2023, Jando-Saul"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/whats-that-noise-listening-queerly-to-the-ultimatum-festival-archives/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Ella Jando-Saul"],"creator_names_search":["Ella Jando-Saul"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"name\":\"Ella Jando-Saul\",\"dates\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2023],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/c4891c8a-e6b8-4a15-b0b4-7ba2b7d4e22a/audio/4d8d4112-c9a7-490e-a3e5-4b973c419512/default_tc.mp3?nocache\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"sc4-6.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:20:50\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"20,008,168 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"sc4-6\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/whats-that-noise-listening-queerly-to-the-ultimatum-festival-archives/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2023-06-19\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"bissett, bill, Christopher Dewdney, and Tom Konyves. U-2-2. 2 May 1985. Folder 2, Deliverables, Audio-Deliverables, The Alan Lord Collection. SpokenWeb Collections, Concordia University, Montreal.\\n\\nbissett, bill, Christopher Dewdney, and Tom Konyves. U-BNW-T5. 2 May 1985. Folder 2, Deliverables, Audio-Deliverables, The Alan Lord Collection. SpokenWeb Collections, Concordia University, Montreal.\\n\\nThose interested can find more information about these recordings in the following documents:\\n\\nbissett, bill. Participant acceptance form. AL-Folder2-img003-04, Folder 1, Alan Lord Archive, The Alan Lord Collection. SpokenWeb Collections, Concordia University, Montreal.\\n\\nbissett, bill. Letter to Alan Lord. AL-Folder2-img195, Folder 1, Alan Lord Archive, The Alan Lord Collection. SpokenWeb Collections, Concordia University, Montreal.\\n\\nKonyves, Tom. Sketch of stage setup. AL-Folder2-img186-187, Folder 1, Alan Lord Archive, The Alan Lord Collection. SpokenWeb Collections, Concordia University, Montreal.\\n\\nLescaut, Roxa. “Le Premier Festival de Poésie urbaine de Montréal.” interModule 2. AL-U85-img029-32 and 035-38, Folder 1, Alan Lord Archive, The Alan Lord Collection. SpokenWeb Collections, Concordia University, Montreal.\\n\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549793800192,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["Have you ever heard a sound on a recording and weren’t sure if it was intentional? That’s what happened to the Listening Queerly research team when they were listening to a recording of the Ultimatum Festival (Montreal, 1985). This team works under the direction of Dr. Mathieu Aubin as part of a SSHRC-funded Insight Development Grant. They’ve been working with a series of recordings of the Ultimatum Festival, which are part of the Alan Lord audio collection, a collection currently being digitized and catalogued by SpokenWeb (Concordia). The Listening Queerly research team – Mathieu Aubin, Ella Jando-Saul, Misha Solomon, Sophia Magliocca, and Rowan Nancarrow – first attempted to confirm who they are listening to in their selected audio file for this ShortCuts by cross-referencing with other recordings of Christopher Dewdney, Tom Konyves, and bill bissett, but then, as the team re-listened to this recording, they focused more and more on the rhythmic thumping sound throughout this clip. What is the cause of this sound and its effect on us as listeners?\n\nListen to this episode of ShortCuts to hear how, even if a sound is an unintentional sound caused by the recording equipment, it still affects our interpretation of the recording.\n\nThis special episode of ShortCuts is produced by Ella Jando-Saul, with contributions from Mathieu Aubin, Misha Solomon, Sophia Magliocca, Rowan Nancarrow, and James Healey. \n\n\n(00:00)\tShortCuts Theme Music \t[Soft piano music interspersed with electronic sound begins]\n  (00:07)\tKatherine McLeod \tWelcome to Shortcuts.\nHave you ever heard a sound on a recording and weren’t sure if the sound was intentional? That’s what happened to the Listening Queerly research team when they were listening to a recording of the Ultimatum Festival in the Alan Lord Audio Collection. First of all, Listening Queerly is a team of student researchers based at Concordia University: Ella Jando-Saul, Misha Solomon, Sophia Magliocca, and Rowan Nancarrow. This team works under the direction of Dr. Mathieu Aubin as part of a SSHRC funded Insight Development grant. \nThey’ve been working with a series of recordings in the Alan Lord Audio Collection, a collection that’s part of SpokenWeb’s audio collections. In 1985, Alan Lord helped to organize the Ultimatum Festival in Montreal. And recordings from that festival are what the Listening Queerly team were listening to when they heard a sound. A sound that sounded almost like a heartbeat, or was it a technical glitch in the recording? Could they be sure? What were they hearing? What’s that noise? \nWhatever it was, the reality was that the sound, the noise, had an impact. They couldn’t stop thinking about it, and they talked about it together. What results from those conversations is this episode of ShortCuts. Here is a very special episode of ShortCuts produced by Ella Jando-Saul, taking you on a deep dive into the sound of one memorable recording. [ShortCuts music swells and then ends]\n(02:02)\tElla Jando-Saul \t[Sound effect of a heart beating begins] \nIn 1985, Alan Lord with help from a team of close friends organized Ultimatum, a literary festival that took place from May 1st to 5th at Les Foufounes Électriques, a punk bar that exists to this day in downtown Montreal. Ultimatum was advertised as an event presenting both a new generation of urban poets who utilize video, computers, electro pop music and performance art as an integral part of their mode of expression, and also traditional poets whose work reflects the urgency and electricity of living in a modern urban environment. \nLord invited both Anglophone and Francophone poets from Montreal, as well as poets from Vancouver, Toronto, Quebec City, and New York. The event was recorded on tapes, which have since been digitized at Concordia University. The tape we are listening to today is from the 2nd of May. \n[Heartbeat sound effect speeds up and then ends]\n(03:05)\tMathieu Aubin\tHi, my name is Mathieu Aubin and I’m the primary investigator for the Listening Queerly Cross-Generational Divides Project, and I’m also a research affiliate in the English department at Concordia University.\n(03:17)\tElla Jando-Saul\tMy name is Ella Jando-Saul and I am the project manager for the Listening Queerly Across Generational Divides project. I am also finishing my first year in the masters program at Concordia University in English Literature.\n(03:31)\tSophia Magliocca\tHi, my name is Sophia Magliocca. I’m a research assistant on the SpokenWeb affiliate project called Listening Queerly Across Generational Divides. I’m also finishing my second year in the masters program here at Concordia University in English Literature.\n(03:45)\tMisha Solomon\tHi, my name is Misha Solomon. I’m a queer listener on the Listening Queerly Across Generational Divides project. I’m also finishing my first year as a master student in the English literature program here at Concordia, with a creative poetry thesis.\n(03:59)\tElla Jando-Saul \tAs part of our research, we listened to the Ultimatum recordings and encountered a tape that included a mysterious heartbeat sound on some of the tracks. The poet speaking on those tracks was unannounced, so we were not sure who it might be. At the time, our team included Rowan Nancarrow, who has since left, but who did much of the listening and contributed to our initial discussions about these tapes.\n(04:29)\tArchival Audio from Alan Lord Archive- [Unknown Speaker] 1\t[Sound effect of a heartbeat begins to play] With real trees around us, why do we want painted trees? What does art give us that life does not?\n[Sound effect of heartbeat ends]\n(04:43)\tElla Jando-Saul \t…many months ago, Misha, you’re actually part of the team already, even though it’s the 8th of December, 2022. And we’re having a conversation as we do on a Monday morning about this tape. Yeah, the weird heartbeat noise is really interesting to me because I can’t tell if it’s intentional or not, and it’s doing really interesting things with the poet’s voice.\nIt’s sort of, I feel like sometimes rhythmically it’s aligning with the rhythm of the poem, and sometimes it’s not, and I find that super interesting, but then we get this like four minutes of just heartbeat, and I find it hard to imagine that that was intentionally just sort of recorded, and there’s the fact that the sound is different. So I’m thinking maybe there’s something that happened to the tape itself, that when we play the tape to digitize it is making this noise.\n(05:41)\tSophia Magliocca \tWhen I found it, when I came across it, I was almost not going to present it at all. The only reason why I decided to present it was because I thought it was a broken tape, and I thought it would be interesting to talk about what a broken tape might look like in this collection. \nSo my initial impression of it was either it got damaged, you know, the tape itself was damaged and they recorded on something that was already damaged and that’s what happened. Or it was like you said, kind of some way affected when they were digitizing it. And then other ideas I have is that because the heartbeat sound was happening on other tapes too, whether it was related to someone tapping on a microphone or some kind of like something happening in the room, unrelated to the technology, but close enough that it was getting caught. And then, you know, because of that shift to the static background noise, it kind of made that whole committing to one version of this what the heartbeat was really difficult.\n(06:38)\tElla Jando-Saul \tMhmm.\n(06:39)\tMisha Solomon \tYou know, based on the pattern and the inconsistency of the noise, I think we can be relatively sure that the heartbeat sound isn’t actually a heartbeat, but it is difficult for me to separate the sound from being a heartbeat. That’s what it feels like somehow. If I try to think about it logically while listening, I suppose it could be a metronome, but it does lack the regular rhythm. Or as others have said, something accidental, microphone feedback or a mechanical issue with the recording device. \nBut I keep going back to the idea that there is something so corporeal about the sound. Something like akin to listening to a whale from inside of a whale’s belly.\n(07:24)\tMathieu Aubin\tHmm. I like that irregularity that you’re pointing to. I hear this, and to me also, I don’t know what it is that we’re thinking, like is it a stethoscope? There we go. You know, listening for someone’s heartbeat is, it’s what it sounds like to me. \nAnd it’s interesting that we have a similar experience of listening to that and identifying that as that kind of sound, but like Misha just said, it’s irregular. So if somebody’s heartbeat is indeed that, I don’t know that that’s probably the best thing for them. So for me, you know, I’m thinking about this and listening to this and it seems like it could be intentional, it could be not intentional. Sometimes because of the rhythm of like, I’m thinking of like tape moving around and maybe bumping that sort of irregularity also could be a technological sound that’s being emitted.\n(08:26)\tElla Jando-Saul \tI mean, Imeasure the intervals of the heartbeats and I do have to say like, I hope this is a whale and not a human, because if it’s a whale, I mean, I’d have to find out what a regular whale heart rhythm is, but for a human like this, this human’s in a coma or something, I don’t know, it’s way too slow for a human and it is a little bit irregular. There will be moments where it sort of slowly gets a bit faster and then it starts getting a lot faster right before it sort of cuts and then you have applause. \nSort of having done that, I’m rethinking my thought about it being just like the tape sort of spinning and that sort of circularity doesn’t really make sense with the way that it’s shifting around. Like, if it was just slight shifts, it would be like, okay, well tape can’t be at the perfectly same speed all the time. But I think especially that bit where it really speeds up, I’m thinking, okay, maybe it’s intentional if it’s doing this, but in that case, why are there all of these silent moments with just a heartbeat?\n[Sound effect of heartbeat begins to play]\nNone of us know much about how sound recording works. So in an attempt to find some answers, we consulted James Healy, the AMP lab coordinator at Concordia University.\n(09:42)\tJames Healy \tThe next one was like the metronome, or what I would describe as a metronome. It could have been like in one of those old school drum machines that were made to accompany an organ in church, because it was just like a simple “pum-pum pum-pum-”\n(09:59)\tElla Jando-Saul \t[Interjecting] -Yeah-\n(10:00)\tJames Healy \t-pattern, but like the timbre reminded me of like a Roland 808 a lot, which made me think that it’s maybe the same chip as the Roland 808, but a little earlier, because I don’t think that they’re using sort of like this staple hip hop drum machine in the background. I think they’d just be using a fairly rudimentary one, because they just need it for a fairly simple task.\n(10:27)\tElla Jando-Saul \tJames answered the question we had been laboring over pretty quickly, but he had more to say about these recordings.\n(10:34)\tJames Healy\tThere was a really high noise floor in one of them. And then the voice was also saturating sooner than it was in the others, which made me think that it was a different time altogether because they had basically set up a whole bunch of new equipment.\n(10:51)\tArchival Audio from Alan Lord Archive [Unknown Speaker] 2\tBecause it cruises hovering, long snouted crocodilian because it is primitive. \nThank you. [Audience claps]\n(11:24)\tArchival Audio from Alan Lord Archive  [Unknown Speaker] 3\t[Sound effect of heartbeat plays] What’s wrong with this?… governments have been lobbied more effectively by proponents of the arms race than the advocates of the peace movement? [Sound effect of heartbeat ends] \n(11:39)\tJames Healy\tAnd what I mean by new noise floors, there’s like a “chhhhhh” and it was closer to the level of the voice than it was in the other pieces of audio. Yeah, I think the next thing that interested me, like in audio to audio and knowing that maybe it was a different room was just literally like the reflection times of the room that I was hearing. Like, I can’t be like that’s a five millisecond reflection, but it’s just like, it sounds different. The room, the reverb, right? Like  you can tell when you’re just mostly getting a direct source.\n(12:21)\tArchival Audio from Alan Lord Archive [Unknown Speaker] 3\t[Sound effect of heartbeat plays]\nWhat’s wrong with this?… governments have been lobbied more effectively…[Sound effect of heartbeat ends]\n(12:25)\tJames Healy \tOr if you’re getting some room reflections bled into the direct source as well.\n(12:32)\tArchival Audio from Alan Lord Archive [Unknown Speaker] 2\tBecause it cruises hovering, long snouted crocodilian because it is primitive. \n(12:36)\tJames Healy \tAll living things with ears are really good at that. They listen for reflection times to know what type of space they’re in.\n(12:43)\tElla Jando-Saul\tThe digitized tape labeled U22  is split into multiple files labeled from T01 to T02. The recordings cut suddenly from one performance to the next, often starting and stopping in the middle of the performance. \nDuring our conversation, James and I started to piece these together chronologically thanks to recordings done by CBC’s Brave New Waves team, also held in Concordia’s ultimatum collection, which recorded the whole evening from start to finish with no cuts. This helped us figure out that the poet using the heartbeat sound was Tom Kenyvesh, an experimental performance and video poet who had recently moved from Montreal to Vancouver. \nOkay. So your guess would be that like what we have with the U22 recordings that sound really close up is that he’s recording these sort of offsite and then bringing them in to play them. \nIn that case, like, does it make sense that there are parts of the same event from that day before this? So it’s like Christopher Dudney live and then it cuts and then it’s Tom Kenyvesh sounding very not live. And then on T06 it’s just heartbeat sounds which are playing in the background, um, of T07, which is back to Tom Kenyvesh speaking, but now we hear like the audience, it sounds very live and then it cuts and it’s Bill Bisit, same event.\n(14:22)\tJames Healy \tYeah. Well that did confuse me, but then Jason mentioned in an email that they actually had like eight tracks on that tape, so that made me think that they possibly used two of the tracks just to record stuff for playback.\nAnd then they just use the other two tracks to record what was going on live in the room, you know? So, and then essentially what you could do is you could take the two tracks that are already recorded, so you want to go out to the PA with them and you could play them via like their own output to the PA while you record on another two tracks what they’re saying. \nSo it could have been a simultaneous thing and they could have just prepped the two recorded tracks, like beforehand.\n(15:48)\tMisha Solomon\t[Sound effect of heartbeat begins to play] \nWhat I find really interesting about the mystery of the sound is that it’s a reminder of the missing information on these tapes. That these tapes are representative of performances that involved some visual aspect and that that aspect is missing entirely. \nAnd so even when the sound changes or disappears, one could imagine someone in an outrageous outfit playing a percussion instrument in the corner and producing that sound. And we’d never know of that person’s existence unless we found photographic or video evidence. But it would significantly change the tenor of the performance were we to be able to see this producer of the sound if the sound is in fact being produced by someone on stage accompanying the performer, let’s say. \nAnd so it’s just interesting to think about the fact that Ultimatum was this full sense live event, one that even seemed to prioritize the visual in terms of screens being available for performers and all that. But here we’re experiencing it only as audio, which is a kind of mutation of the event into something that is only available to us using one sense. So the sound is an invitation to theorize and that invitation can either be fruitful or, you know, can lead the listener astray down paths to which answers might not be found.\n(17:17)\tSophia Magliocca\tYeah. I love when we think about our project in that way, like that distance that we have in a way retains the privacy of the event, but also invites us in and gives us that intimacy in a really different sensory experience or in a limited one. And when I think about the heartbeat in that way, and whether it’s intentional or not, it does force the listener to really turn or return interior, accept the sound for what it is. \nAnd for a moment it was really nice that we just got to sit and really think about what it could be without having any definitive answers. And think about how it was complimenting the poem and how it was complimenting our experience, you know, so many years down the line of taking that with the limited resources that we have. \nAnd it’s always interesting to have, you know, the real technical terms for what’s going on. But sitting in that mystery, I find, brought us closer and really gave us an opportunity to distinguish the voices and distinguish the settings in a way that, and in a depth that we didn’t always apply to all the other recordings. And this gave us a way into that.\n(18:20)\tElla Jando-Saul \tMm-hmm. And sitting with the mystery, but also just sitting with the sound, however fragmentary it is that we have left to us, is sort of itself an art piece so that whether the heartbeat is intentional or not, it creates this really great experience. Like it is wonderful to hear with the poem regardless of where it comes from.\n(18:44)\tMathieu Aubin\tAnd I love the way that it’s formatted and structured as an art piece, as a poem where these powerful, impactful lines are read and then they’re interspersed with [Sound effect of heartbeat begins to play] these like “bum bums” in the effect of that. And how we’re sitting with that sort of message while trying to figure out that mystery the whole time.\n(19:11)\tArchival Audio from Alan Lord Archive [Unknown Speaker] 4\tForgive everything, walk, don’t run, post no bills, leave no fingerprints. In case of emergency stand still, press return. Please don’t touch. [Long pause] Push. \n[Heartbeat fades slowly] \n(20:14)\tKatherine McLeod \t[ShortCuts Theme Music plays] You’ve been listening to ShortCuts. This episode of ShortCuts was produced by Ella Jando-Saul. You also heard the voices of Mathieu Aubin, Sophia Magliocca, Misha Solomon, and input from Rowan Nancarrow. Also a special thanks to James Healy. ShortCuts is a deep dive into archival audio distributed monthly on the SpokenWeb podcast feed. It is mixed and mastered by Miranda Eastwood, transcribed by Zoe Mix and written and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening.\n[ShortCuts Theme music ends] "],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9682","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 1.1, Audio of the Month – Daryl Hine’s Point Grey, 20 January 2020, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-daryl-hines-point-grey/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2020],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/a736b976-2394-4326-8ba6-8250b6767046/minisode-ep1-edit-v2_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"minisode-ep1-edit-v2_tc.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:06:35\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"6,387,296 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"Minisode ep1_Edit V2\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-daryl-hines-point-grey/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2020-01-20\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[]"],"_version_":1853670549802188800,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["Welcome to our first SpokenWeb minisode. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly spokenweb podcast episode) – join Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of Month mini series. This month Katherine shares a recording of Canadian poet Daryl Hine reading “Point Grey” (1967).\n\n(0:00)\tSpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n(00:10)\tHannah McGregor\tWelcome to our first SpokenWeb minisode. Each month on alternate fortnights—that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode—join me, Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month miniseries. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives. An extension of Katherine’s Audio of the Week series at spokenweb.ca, Katherine brings her favourite audio each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb’s inaugural Audio of the Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds.\n(00:57)\tTheme Music\t[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n(01:03\n)\tKatherine McLeod\tAt the end of 2019, I was listening back through the December readings in the Sir George Williams Poetry Series and I started exploring the reading by Daryl Hine. At first, I considered selecting his reading of the final poem “The Trout,” but then I noticed something else: a note for one timestamp indicating that Hine had introduced and read quote, “an unknown poem.” End quote. As I listened to his introduction to that poem, I realized that he was preparing the audience for the now-famous poem “Point Grey,” which at the time of this reading was not yet published. In fact, the introducer of Hine at the start of the reading had mentioned that Minutes, the collection that contained “Point Grey,” would be published in the new year, 1968. That voice of the introducer was listed as unknown, too, but it sounded a great deal like Margaret Atwood, possibly meaning that this was the first time that Atwood heard “Point Grey,” a point to expand upon elsewhere and perhaps even to confirm through an Audio of the Week in the new year.\n(02:15)\tKatherine McLeod\tReturning back to the audio clip of Hine’s poem, the unpublished state of “Point Grey” is audible through the sounds of the pages turning, suggesting that Hine read from sheets of paper, not from a book and especially in his decision to restart and read a different version. He introduced the poem by describing its view from the University of British Columbia or Point Grey clarifying that, quote, “I don’t mean the university by any of the architectural things I mention in this poem, but I’m talking about the beach, a very beautiful, barren Pacific beach that lies below Point Grey.” End quote. Many years ago, I heard this poem read in a classroom at UBC, overlooking the same view where, quote, “…rain makes spectres of the mountains.” End quote. Here was “Point Grey, on this recording, as I listened from Montreal where this poem was read in 1967, soon to be published in 1968 and anthologized in poetry collections for years to come.\n(03:27)\tAudio Recording\t[Coughs] [Audio, Daryl Hine] Well, I also—[Shuffling Papers] this year or was it last?—returned to my place of origin, British Columbia [Long Pause, Audio Cuts Slightly] –Grey, which will be familiar to some of you as the site of the University of British Columbia. I don’t mean the university by any of the architectural things I mention in this poem. But I’m talking about the beach, a very beautiful, barren Pacific beach that lies below Point Grey.\n(04:10)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Daryl Hine Begins To Recite “Point Grey”] Brought up as I was to judge the weather / Whether it was fair or overcast… [Stops Reciting] Well [Crumples Paper] I’ll read another version, I think. Excuse me. [Begins To Recite A Different Version of “Point Grey”] Brought up as I was to ask of the weather / Whether it is fair or overcast, / Here, at least, it is a pretty morning, / The first fine day as I am told in months. / I took a path that led down to the beach, / Reflecting as I went on landscape, sex, and weather. / I met a welcome wonderful enough / To exorcise the educated ghost / Within me. No, this country is not haunted, / Only the rain makes spectres of the mountains. / There they are, and there somehow is the problem / Not exactly of freedom or of generation, / But just of living and the pain it causes. / Sometimes I think the air we breathe is mortal / And dies, trapped, in our unfeeling lungs. / Not too distant the mountains in the morning / Dropped their dim approval on the gesture / With which enthralled I greeted all this grandeur. / Beside the path, half buried in the bracken, / Stood a long-abandoned concrete bunker, / A little temple of lust, its rough walls covered / With religious frieze and votary inscription. / Personally I know no one who doesn’t suffer / Some sore of guilt, and mostly bedsores, too, / Those that come from scratching where it itches / And that dangerous sympathy called prurience. / But all about release and absolution / Lie in the waves that lap the dirty shingle / And the mountains that rise at hand above the rain. / Though I had forgotten that it could be so simple, / A beauty of sorts is nearly always within reach. [Shuffling Papers]\n(\n06:12)\tMusic\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n(06:12)\tKatherine McLeod\tHead to spokenweb.ca to find the entire recording where this selection is from. I’m Katherine McLeod and tune in next month for another deep dive into SpokenWeb’s audio collections."],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9660","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 2.7, Moving, 19 April 2021, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/moving/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2021],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/191afc43-7900-41f2-b82e-38b41a4e5eba/audio/a4fd83fa-8a12-4186-b289-0d1e5be20e02/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"s2-shortcuts7-moving.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:13:19\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"12,786,339 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"s2-shortcuts7-moving\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/moving/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2021-04-19\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Collis, Stephen. Almost Islands: Phyllis Webb and the Pursuit of the Unwritten. Talonbooks, 2018. \\n\\nMcGregor, Hannah. “The Voice is Intact: Finding Gwendolyn MacEwen in the Archive.” The SpokenWeb Podcast, 6 April 2020, https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/the-voice-is-intact-finding-gwendolyn-macewen-in-the-archive/. \\n\\nMcLeod, Katherine. “Listening to the Archives of Phyllis Webb.” In Moving Archives. Ed. Linda Morra. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2020. 113-131.\\n\\n—. “Poetry on TV: Unarchiving Phyllis Webb’s CBC-TV Program Extension (1967).” CanLit Across Media: Unarchiving the Literary Event. Eds. Jason Camlot and Katherine McLeod. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019. 72-91.\\n\\nWebb, Phyllis. Naked Poems, Periwinkle Press, 1965. \\n\\nWebb, Phyllis. Peacock Blue: The Collected Poems. Ed. John Hulcoop. Talonbooks, 2014.\\n\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549802188801,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This month, it is April – the month of poetry. The audio we will be listening to is a poem by Canadian poet Phyllis Webb. In fact, it is a series of poems from Naked Poems, poems that open up space and that leave room for the listener to listen – to listen quietly, or to fill up that space with their listening. How is a poem held in the space in which it is spoken, and what happens to desire in this speaking? How are they held in the archives?\n\n\n00:00      Music:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n00:10\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to the SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series.\n \n\n00:28\tHannah McGregor:\tWe’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? A fresh take on our past minisode series, ShortCuts is an extension [Sound Effect: Wind Chime] of the ShortCuts blog posts on SPOKENWEBLOG. The series brings Katherine’s favorite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So, if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more [End Music: Instrumental Electronic] Without further ado, here’s Katherine McLeod with episode one of SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini stories about how literature sounds.\n \n\n01:10\tSpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music:\n \n\n[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n01:17\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to ShortCuts, a monthly minisode in which we listen closely and carefully to a shortcut [Sound Effect: Scissors Cutting] from the SpokenWeb archives. Our last minisode ended up being the most interactive so far. It was a collaborative listening that ended with a conversation, trying to figure out what was happening in a confusing moment in archival listening. It was one of those moments that you wish you could go back and talk about. That’s what we did, and we’ll be talking about more of those moments in future ShortCuts.\n \n\n01:46\tKatherine McLeod::\tWhat kinds of moments might we be revisiting? One of SpokenWeb’s audio collections held by Simon Fraser University is called the Gerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest collection. It’s a series of recordings of a radio program called radiofreerainforest that produced by Gilbert in the 1980s. Coming up in future minsodes we’ll dive into that audio collection, especially to talk about some of the spaces where the recordings take place. One reading happens on a bus, yes, it was recorded on a bus travelling through Vancouver’s downtown streets. Another recording has Dionne Brand and Lee Maracle reading and talking together on a panel, but where did the panel take place? And what was it like to hear this panel on the radio?\n \n\n02:28\tKatherine McLeod:\tWe’ll try to figure all of this out. Plus, we’ve been diving into audio collections from the past, but coming up we’ll be listening to recordings of literary events that took place much ore recently. That’s what we’ll be listening to next month. Subscribe to The SpokenWeb Podcast if you haven’t already to stay tuned for that, along with, of course, the full episodes of The SpokenWeb Podcast on the first Monday of each month. This month, it is April, the month of poetry. The audio that we will be listening to in this ShortCuts is a poem by Canadian poet Phyllis Webb. It is in fact a series of poems from Naked Poems, poems that open up space, that leave room for the listener to listen – to listen quietly, or to fill up that space with their listening. The space is audible in her reading of the poems and it is visible on the page, as Webb comments on when she introduces Naked Poems to her Montreal audience in 1966…\n \n\n03:30\tAudio Recording, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\tI want to move on now to my latest book, which is called Naked Poems, in which one of your local critics – or at least you vote for the Montreal Star at this particular point – exclaimed of the price – because there are so few words in the book [Audience Laughter]. It’s $2.25. [Audience Laughter]. These poems are very small and therefore very expensive [Audience Laughter] and and came at a bitter price. I may say, to me. They came quite as a surprise. I didn’t know what I was doing when I wrote them – the first 14 or so. I thought, my goodness, what are these little things doing here? And I couldn’t quite take them seriously. And then I began to see the order that really was intrinsic, in them. And realized that here was something – almost a new form for me to work on. And it’s very bare, naked, undecorated. And I wanted to get rid of all my affectations. And so I decided to write oh a couple of hundred of them. And I wrote about a hundred and then got hung up on a technical problem and finally reduced them to, I don’t know, 40 or so that are in this book. So this is a distillation let’s say. I’m going to read the first14, which comprise the total poem– in a sense, the whole book is a poem. And then I’ll read a few more, as long as my voice and your patience will hold out.\n \n\n05:46\tKatherine McLeod:\tIn that clip, we hear that Naked Poems has recently been published around the time of that reading. It’s an example of hearing time in the archives, coming back to a theme running through this season. As for how we can hear in this minisode and in the archive of podcasts it is creating, we can think this month of April and what this time brings to our listening to Webb’s poem and to Webb herself. April is the month of Webb’s birthday, and I hope that the sounds of this minisode travels through the airwaves to her on Saltspring Island in British Columbia. I was able to meet with her there a couple years ago while working on articles about her poetry and she graciously made time for a visit. I had hoped to meet again but the sound of this minisode may make it there first before I can travel from Montreal to BC. And so, it is with this spirit of sending the sound across from Montreal to Saltspring Island that I cut the audio of this ShortCuts and make it into a gift, crafted with deep respect and gratitude for your art, Phyllis Webb.\n \n\n06:54\tKatherine McLeod:\tLet’s now hear Webb read from Naked Poems. The reading was recorded in 1966 in Montreal at Sir George Williams University, now Concordia. At that reading, the second reader was Gwendolyn MacEwen. Imagine hearing Phyllis Webb and Gwendolyn MacEwen reading in person on the same night. MacEwen would be sitting in the audience listening to Webb read. Here is Webb reading “Suite I” and “Suite II” from Naked Poems…\n \n\n07:26\tAudio Recording, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\t“Suite 1” Moving to establish distance between our houses. It seems I welcome you in. Your mouth blesses me all over. There is room. And here. And here. And here. And over. And over. Your. Mouth. Tonight, quietness in me and the room. I am enclosed by a thought and some walls. The bruise. Again, you have left your mark. All we have. Skin shuttered secretly. Flies. Tonight in this room, two flies on the ceiling are making love quietly or so it seems down here. [Audience Laughter]. Your blouse. I people this room with things, a chair, a lamp, a fly. Two books by Mary Ann Moore. I have thrown my gloves on the floor. Was it only last night? You took with so much gentleness, my dark. Sweet tooth. While you were away, I held you like this in my mind. It is a good mind that can embody perfection with exactitude.\n \n\n09:36\tAudio Recording, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\tThe sun comes through plum curtains. I said, the sun is gold in your eyes. It isn’t the sun. You said. On the floor, your blouse. The plum light falls more golden, going down. Tonight, quietness in the room. We knew. Then you must go. I sat cross-legged on the bed. There is no room for self pity, I said. I lied. In the gold darkening light you dressed. I hid my face in my hair. The room that held you is still here. You brought me clarity. Gift after gift I wear. Poems naked. In the sunlight. On the floor.\n \n\n10:59\tKatherine McLeod:\tIn that reading, we hear the space of the poem and we feel the presence of that space. We see the sunbeam shining through the air, we see the blouse sitting on the floor of the room, we feel the air thick with eros, between objects, between people, between the poet and subject. What would it be like to hear this in the room in 1966? This expression of female desire, to be contained within the archives of this reading series –\n \n\n11:32\tAudio Recording, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\n \n\nWhile you were away. I held you like this in my mind.\n11:38\tKatherine McLeod:\tWe hear this holding. The quietness of each page …\n \n\n11:43\tAudio Recording, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\tQuietness. In the room. We knew…\n \n\n11:48\tKatherine McLeod:\tWe hear the turning of the page. The room–\n \n\n11:51\tAudio Recording, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\n \n\nThe room that held you. Is still here…\n11:55\tKatherine McLeod:\tWe are listening to desire in the making, every time we press play on this recording, as though we were returning to the same room, the room of the poem, the room of the reading, the voice moving…\n \n\n12:09\tAudio Recording, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\n \n\nYou brought me clarity. Gift after gift, I wear. Poems naked, in the sunlight, on the floor.\n12:26\tKatherine McLeod:\tThe room that held you is still here.\n \n\n12:29\tMusic:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n \n\n12:37\tKatherine McLeod:\tMy name is Katherine McLeod, and this ShortCuts minisode was produced by myself, hosted by Hannah McGregor, and mixed and mastered by Judith Burr and Stacey Copeland. It was recorded in the city of Montreal, or what is known as Tio’tia:ke in the language of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation. Head to SpokenWeb.ca to find out more about The SpokenWeb Podcast and tune in next month for another deep dive into the SpokenWeb archives."],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9661","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 2.8, Contrapuntal Poetics, 17 May 2021, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/contrapuntal-poetics/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2021],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/478fa03a-47f5-46f5-84ee-548433c59706/audio/22aa5df2-7658-4204-997b-9a175efbae6e/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"s2e8-shortcuts.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:12:50\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"12,380,831 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"s2e8-shortcuts\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/contrapuntal-poetics/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2021-05-17\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"AUDIO SOURCES\\n\\nAudio clipped from “The Words and Music Show” (29 March 2020), https://www.facebook.com/1541307492796466/videos/891396077972589.\\n\\nAudio clipped from “ShortCuts 1.3 Where does the reading begin?” (Kaie Kellough reading at “The Words and Music Show,” 16 Nov 2016),  https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-where-does-the-reading-begin/.\\n\\nRESOURCES\\n\\nGibson, Kenneth. “Jessica Moss ponders the mysteries of the universe.” The Concordian. 22 January 2019,  http://theconcordian.com/2019/01/jessica-moss-ponders-the-mysteries-of-the-universe/.\\n\\nMoss, Jessica. Entanglement. https://jessicamoss.bandcamp.com/album/entanglement.\\n\\nPerry Cox, Alexei. Finding Places to Make Places. Vallum, 2019. \\n\\n—– Revolution / Re: Evolution. Gap Riot, 2021.\\n\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549803237376,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["In this ShortCuts minisode, listen to the contrapuntal poetics of poet Alexei Perry Cox. In a recording made at home, Alexei reads and improvises in response to a second voice in the room – the voice of her daughter Isla. Their interaction itself could be heard as a poem. Meanwhile, sounds of place enter and exit the room of the recording, with what sounds like cars passing by outside and even the “Zoom room” becoming audible at times. The audio you hear in this ShortCuts was recorded, over Zoom, as part of the first online version of The Words and Music Show on March 29, 2020. What are you listening to when you listen to an online reading? From where do you listen? \n\n\n00:00\tMusic:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n00:10\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to the SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series.\n \n\n00:28\tHannah McGregor:\tWe’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? A fresh take on our past minisode series, ShortCuts is an extension [Sound Effect: Wind Chime] of the ShortCuts blog posts on SPOKENWEBLOG. The series brings Katherine’s favorite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So, if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more [End Music: Instrumental Electronic] Without further ado, here’s Katherine McLeod with episode one of SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini stories about how literature sounds.\n \n\n01:17\tSpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music:\t[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n \n\n01:17\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to ShortCuts. Each month, we listened closely and carefully to a shortcut or cuts from SpokenWeb‘s audio collections. The recent ShortCuts have been from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, but last season we ventured into a more recent collection in episode three, when we heard a truly innovative way of starting a reading.\n \n\n01:42\tAudio Recording, Kaie Kellough, Words and Music Show:\tI want to forget/ 1980s /high school fever / forget articles in the Herald/ in the moment of heavy evangelical / black-haired teens from reserves / who drank themselves to death in macho contests/activity and much extreme conservativism/ trying to prove to themselves that they exist/ as night drifts into next days headlines / some of the challenges that arise growing up and trying to live and become oneself in a climate like that / I want to forget my stupid conviction that a boy had to be distilled into a man/ that the Caribean bloodline had to be spiked with rum / which seems to be a climate that is re-emerging/ that amber alcohol…\n \n\n02:13\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat was Kaie Kellough reading at The Words and Music Show in Montreal. And the audio collection for Words and Music is where we’re headed to you for this minisode. But we’re not going to be listening to audio that was recorded at Casa de Popolo where so much of the Words and Music show has been recorded live over these past 20 years. No, we’ll be listening to the Words and Music show recorded from home — the first one to be online and hosted on Zoom. On March 29th, 2020, the Words and Music Show took to the Zoom stage. Co-hosted by Ian Ferrier and Jason Camlot. That first online show was meant to test if it worked. And it did.\n \n\n02:58\tAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words and Music, March 2020:\tI wonder how many people can hold.\n \n\n03:01\tAudio Recording, Jason Camlot, Words and Music, March 2020:\t300 people.\n \n\n03:02\tAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words and Music, March 2020:\n \n\nOh wow. Okay.\n \n\n03:04\tAudio Recording, Jason Camlot, Words and Music, March 2020:\n \n\nI think we’ll be okay.\n \n\n03:06\tKatherine McLeod:\tSince then, the Words and Music Show has been online usually every third Sunday of the month. By now, most of us are used to attending Zoom events, or at least whereas used to it as we’ll get — or want to get. But back in March 2020, it was incredibly new. The reason why among the many recordings that are now part of the archive of pandemic poetry readings I’m selecting this one, is because it demonstrates the blurring of the public and the private through sound. In these archival recordings we listen on ShortCuts, we often ask: what are we listening to? And what are the sounds around the poem that tell us about the space, the sociality of the room, and how the sound was recorded? These sounds around the poem give context. They become part of the relationality of the listening. Sound doesn’t exist on its own, but in relation. What is our relation to this sound now? What does it feel like to listen to it? With that in mind, let’s listen to the ShortCut for this month: A reading by poet Alexei Perry Cox on March 29th, 2020.\n \n\n04:21\tAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words and Music, March 2020:\tAnd the next thing we have is a video which was created under extreme conditions of trying to do it at the same time as she entertained her 18 month old child on her bed. And it’s by the poet, Alexei Perry Cox. So I’m going to bring that up now and we can take a listen. Yeah, here she comes.\n \n\n04:46\tAudio Recording, Alexei Perry Cox, Words and Music, March 2020: \tThe unequivocal [french word], according to the [inaudible], comes in the chorus that has a lullaby. It makes use of emphasis on the incantatory present participle and is a consultation. Tropical, the island breathes, and this was where I long to be. Time is portrayed as malleable and is a journey. The samba played in the past and rings the ears presently. The sun would set so high and stings the eyes now. A lullaby operates on its own terms and does its own time. We are taken there to this Isla Bonita, and there is wherever we are. In a vice grip with my lover in exile. As time went by, my lover was gradually overtaken by an urgent desire whose futility exceeded all measures, but the circumference of the universe itself. I desire to grasp the secret of the present, to penetrate the eternal unity of life and see a system’s undulating veil. In the universe of our civil war, systems have the insubstantialabily of hummingbirds song and the iridescence of its plumage. While their manifestations were immutable. Told that my lover, my love for my lover, told that my love for my lover was a vice. That loving another woman wasn’t very womanly of me [Baby Speaking] that our civil war as being against ourselves. Wasn’t the same as their civil war as being against us. [Baby: Coos] My lover believed there had to be a point at which reality perfect in congress would get through to human kind. In exile, in Paris, in Sausalito. I want you to touch me here and here. I want it to be worn for me, for you. I want to love systems that are women so that you can enter them by being untrue.\n \n\n07:10\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Audio Recording: Alexei and Baby continue underneath] We’re listening to the audio of Alexei Perry Cox reading by video at the Words and Music show online on March 29th, 2020. She’s reading from “Finding places to make places” and she’s accompanied by the voice of Isla her then 18 month old daughter –\n \n\n07:35\tAudio Recording, Alexei Perry Cox, Words and Music, March 2020: \n \n\n[Baby: Coos] La revolution ….\n \n\n07:37\tKatherine McLeod:\tWhat are we listening to in this clip?\n \n\n07:41\tAudio Recording, Alexei Perry Cox, Words and Music, March 2020: \n \n\n[Baby: Cries] \n \n\n07:41\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Audio Recording: Alexei and Baby continue underneath] The poem? The interaction between Alexei and her daughter that becomes a duet? The improvisation, or to the quality of the sound, the audibility of the Zoom room? –\n \n\n07:57\tAudio Recording, Alexei Perry Cox, Words and Music, March 2020: \n \n\nThe entropy in an open system –\n \n\n07:57\tKatherine McLeod:\t– [Audio Recording: Alexei and Baby continue underneath] When listening to a recording of Phyllis Web reading from Naked Poems on a previous ShortCuts, I suggested considering how desire is held by the archives and how the poem creates a space for the listener. Similarly, how does this recording hold the poem’s desire and how does the poem make space inhabit space? From where are we listening?\n \n\n08:25\tAudio Recording, Alexei Perry Cox, Words and Music, March 2020: \tTo a certain logic for disappearing. You cannot live the same life as you imagine. [Aside: Alexei laughs at baby] You must live a smaller life. A more compact life. [Aside: Yeah? Laughs] [Baby: Coos] The life is too capacious. You will lose your balance. Driving home, I think this. [Baby: Coos with increasing volume] A door opens on an eye, an eye opens on a line. A line of eyes, looking into a coffin, carrying the body. Body to the river and into a vision. You know your conscience cannot forgive what left you long ago washed away by summer floods like a body loosened from a grip into something death made transformative.\n \n\n09:21\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Audio Recording: Alexei and Baby continue underneath] As I listened to this back in March, 2020, I was right in the middle of making an episode for the SpokenWeb Podcast with Jason Camlot. We were making an episode called “How are we listening, now? Signal, Noise, Silence”, which you can have a listen to if you feel like revisiting that time of March 2020 sonically. When I heard Alexei read at the Words and Music show, I was so moved by her reading. The interweaving voices, what improvisation at a poetry reading. Plus it felt like her reading was enacting exactly what the podcast was trying to say: that we are missing the noise around the signal. We still miss it now. We miss the buzz in the room, the social sounds around the signal, the voice of the speaker. I know I can’t wait until I can stand in a crowded room and listen to Alexei read on stage at a microphone again. By the way, [Audio Recording: Alexei and Baby continue underneath]in January 2019, I was at an album launch for the Montreal musician, Jessica Moss and Alexei read poetry as the opening act. She read with her newborn strapped to her chest.\n \n\n10:38\tAudio Recording, Alexei Perry Cox, Album launch, 2019:\n \n\n[Baby: Cries] Even as a new you moves about the womb –\n \n\n10:41\tKatherine McLeod:\tThis little voice that we’re hearing in this recording had already been with her mother on stage for a poetry reading. [Audio Recording: Alexei and Baby continue underneath]\n \n\n10:48\tAudio Recording, Alexei Perry Cox,___, 2019:\n \n\n– the world is smaller than the center of your eye. But when I –\n \n\n10:51\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Audio Recording: Alexei and Baby continue underneath] Going back to readings onstage doesn’t mean that we will not perform with our full selves, with the public and the private self coexisting. Even if the audience doesn’t always see it or hear it that way. With that, let’s return to Alexei and Isla who inhabit a poem with “Womb or the World”.\n \n\n11:15\tAudio Recording, Alexei Perry Cox, Words and Music, March 2020: \t[Baby: crying and cooing] A book without room for the world would be no book. It would lack the most beautiful pages, the ones left, in which even the smallest pebble is reflected. The present is the time of writing, both obsessed with and cut off from out of time, brimming with life. Fabulous a wing, unfolding in a poultry field appearance while night finds no constellation in night but in it’s eclipse. Like this. [Aside: Kisses baby]. [Baby: Coos].\n \n\n11:54\tTheme Music:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n \n\n11:54\tAudio Recording, Jason Camlot, Words and Music, March 2020:\n \n\nAnd there’s bye-bye to Alexei, who was being seriously upstaged there.\n \n\n12:08\tKatherine McLeod:\tShortCuts is mixed and mastered by Judith Burr, hosted by Hannah McGregor, and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Head to spokenweb.ca to find out more about the sounds in this minisode and to learn more about SpokenWeb and the SpokenWeb Podcast. Thanks for listening. [Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat continues and fades]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9662","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 2.9, Situating Sound, 21 June 2021, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/situating-sound/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2021],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/93f41bc8-fa9e-4603-96f3-5d3b5b1679ca/audio/cf8f93b4-3c4a-42b3-91f3-f2b8c931f7b8/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-2-9-situating-sound.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:15:01\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"14,480,658 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"shortcuts-2-9-situating-sound\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/situating-sound/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2021-06-21\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"AUDIO SOURCES\\n\\nDionne Brand, recording played on radiofreerainforest, 7 August 1988, https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/radiofreerainforest-90/radiofreerainforest-7-25-august-1988-and-30-october-1988.\\n\\nRESOURCES\\n\\n“#101 Renee Rodin.” BC Booklook, 28 January 2016,  https://bcbooklook.com/101-renee-rodin/.\\n\\n“Desire Lines: Mapping the metadata of Toronto arts publishing.” Art Gallery of York University, https://agyu.art/project/desire-lines/.\\n\\n“Gerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest Collection.” SFU Digitized Collections, https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/gerry-gilbert-radiofreerainforest-collection.\\n\\nKinesis. Periodicals. Vancouver : Vancouver Status of Women, 1 Sept. 1988. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/kinesis/items/1.0045699.\\n\\nOur Lives. Toronto: Black Women’s Collective. Volume 2 5.6 (Summer/Fall 1988), https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/publications/our-lives-canadas-first-black-womens-newspaper/ourlives-02-0506-summer-fall-1988/.\\n\\n“radiofreerainforest 3 & 28 July and 7 August, 1988.” Gerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest Collection: SFU Digitized Collections,  https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/radiofreerainforest-357/radiofreerainforest-3-28-july-and-7-august-1988.\\n\\n“radiofreerainforest 7, 25 August, 1988 and 30 October, 1988.” Gerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest Collection: SFU Digitized Collections, https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/radiofreerainforest-90/radiofreerainforest-7-25-august-1988-and-30-october-1988.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549804285952,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["On this ShortCuts, we dive into a new audio collection: Gerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest Collection, accessible through SFU Library’s Digitized Collections. We’ll hear a recording of Dionne Brand reading in Vancouver with Lee Maracle of the Stó:lō nation. The recording of this reading was then played on the local radio program radiofreerainforest on August 7, 1988. What would it have been like to listen to this reading live in 1988? On the radio? And what is it like to hear it out of context in the archives now? This ShortCuts minisode is about the archival research process. ShortCuts producer Katherine McLeod takes us on a brief journey into the research behind an archived tape in SpokenWeb’s collection, all started by and ending with a reading of poetry by Dionne Brand.  \n“a motion heard on my inner ear” – Dionne Brand, Primitive Offensive (1982)\n\n\n00:02\tHannah McGregor:\t[Start Music: Jazzy Techno] Listeners, we want to hear from you. What short clip of literary sound would you propose we listened to in an episode of ShortCuts? If you’re a researcher with the SpokenWeb Project pitch an episode to ShortCuts Season Three. You can start with a blog post on SpokenWeb blog, or go straight for pitching us an episode. If you’re a fan of the show, please suggest an idea by emailing spokenwebpodcast@gmail.com. [End Music: Jazzy Techno]\n \n\n00:43\tHannah McGregor:\t[Start Music: Theme Music]  Welcome to the SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights at every second week, following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode, join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts miniseries. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask, what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? Shortcuts is an extension of the ShortCuts blog posts on SPOKENWEBLOG. So, if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spoken web.ca for more. Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini stories about how literature sounds. [End Theme Music] [Start Music: SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music: [Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n \n\n \n\n01:39\tKatherine McLeod:\t[End Music: SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music] Welcome to ShortCuts. On ShortCuts we listen closely and carefully to a short cut [Audio Effect: Scissor Snip] from the archives. On this ShortCuts, we dive into a new audio collection, [Underlaid Sound: radiofreerainforest clip with various voices overlapping] radiofreerainforest. radiofreerainforest was a program that aired on Vancouver’s Co-op Radio in the 1980s into the 1990s.\n \n\n02:16\tAudio Recording, radiofreerainforest clip:\t[Echo Effect] [Various Voices] radiofreerainforest.\n \n\n02:16\tKatherine McLeod:\tRecordings that were played on that program were kept by its producer and host Gerry Gilbert. And they’re now one of SFU’s many audio collections currently being processed by SpokenWeb researchers. Something I’ve been thinking about while preparing this ShortCuts, is what kind of a framework does audio clip out of context need to feel supported? And I say that while holding out my arms, gesturing as though I’m attempting to hold the sound. I could select a clip and just simply play it. But I feel like that doesn’t give enough context, but I also don’t want to give too much context. My hope is that I can guide you into the listening and then you can take it from there. Where I’m leading you to is a reading by Dionne Brand in 1988. The recording of the reading was broadcast on the radio, on radiofreerainforest on August 7th, 1988. The tapes of this recording and yes, tapes in the plural – more on that in a moment –indicate that it was Dionne Brand reading with Lee Maracle. It took place in Vancouver and as to where, that required a little searching. One tape says R2B2 Books. And I figured out that it was a bookstore on fourth avenue that had once been the location of Octopus Books and later became Black Sheep Books before closing in the early 2000s. I remember going into Black Sheep Books when I lived in Vancouver and I didn’t realize that it had such a history of holding so many readings as R2B2 Books. What else do we know about the recording? Well, it was a long one. It spans two cassettes, not because it was recorded on those two tapes, but because it was transferred onto them. What I’m getting at here is this: imagine pressing play on a tape labeled “radiofreerainforest, 3rd and 28th of July and 7th August, 1988.” The Dionne Brand and Lee Maracle reading starts part way through one side and then on a completely different tape labeled “radiofreerainforest 7th, 25th, August, 1988 and 30th, October, 1988”.\n04:31\tKatherine McLeod:\tThere is the rest of the recording. On that second tape, the Brand reading starts right in the middle when you press play. And that’s where I found myself in it’s sound without knowing the context in which she was speaking from or where that reading was taking place. It was after finding the other tape that I could piece together, that it was on August 6th, 1988, and then aired on August 7th, 1988. And that it was at R2B2 Bookstore. It was in the middle of this that I consulted SpokenWeb’s metadata system to see a photograph of the tape itself. And that’s how I found the date of the reading. But before that, I was going by the fact that Brand mentions an event in solidarity with South African women against apartheid, that would have happened the next day, August 7th. From doing a bit of searching in print archives, I found out from the feminist newspaper Kinesis that as part of the March, the next day Maracle had given a speech in solidarity against apartheid speaking as an Indigenous woman of the Stó:lō nation.\n05:37\tKatherine McLeod:\tAnd that she had also written about this solidarity in a 1988 issue of the Black women’s newspaper Our Lives that Brand had helped to edit. These pieces of context are only the beginning of unpacking the significance of these two women reading together. And unraveling this history all started by wanting to know more about one archival recording. So as we listen to this reading, what would it be like to be there in that room with Dionne Brand and Lee Maracle in 1988? Now in June, 2021, what does it feel like when you hear this recording wherever you might be listening from? How do we understand this recording in relation to the archive that holds it? I am recording this a week after Brand read from The Blue Clerk at an annual meeting of the Association of Canadian Archivists. How does Brand hear time? When she introduces what she reads from Primitive Offensive in the recording we’re about to hear she says that the poetry is made out of the pieces of history, a history that as she says, if you are Black in the Americas, you have to dig for it. How does that resonate with the lines where she chooses to end?\n \n\n06:56\tAudio Recording, Dionne Brand, 1988:\tI won’t take any evidence of me, even that carved in the sky by the fingerprints of clouds every day. Even those that do not hold a wind’s impression. [Aside to audience] Okay, that’s it. [Audience applause].\n \n\n07:12\tKatherine McLeod:\tAs we could hear in that recording, there are noises in the background. We’ll be hearing what sound like cars passing outside, we’ll hear some voices and might wonder if those are people talking outside the bookstore window, or perhaps this recording has been recorded over another one and we’re actually hearing the voices of another time bleeding through the tape. Here is Dionne Brand reading from her book, Primitive Offensive in a recording that was broadcast on radiofreerainforest on August 7th, 1988, and now that recording is held by and shapes an archive.\n \n\n07:58\tAudio Recording, Dionne Brand, 1988:\t[Static and various background noises throughout] I’m going to read a poem for my grandmother, a poem for my ancestors, really. I wrote this book Primitive Offensive because, for whatever history has left you, if you were Black in the Americas, you have to dig and dig and dig and memorize and memorize and learn and learn it and redo it and recover it and re– you know, because it isn’t anywhere else. And so this was my history book. Sometimes you arrive and find what seems to be nothing, and you have to dig for it. And this is a call to my ancestors about this history. And I looked for my ancestors and I found what there was. And so – and sometimes you find nothing and you make it anyway. [Laughs] You know, you find a piece of cloth, a bit of this, whatever, but you make it humour. So –[Start of reading]  Ancestor dirt/ ancestor snake/ ancestor lice / ancestor whip/ ancestor fish/ ancestor slime/ ancestor sea/ ancestor stick/ ancestor iron/ ancestor bush/ ancestor ship/ ancestor\n09:12\tAudio Recording, Dionne Brand, 1988:\told woman, old bead/ let me feel your skin, old muscle, old stick/ where are my bells?/ my rattles/ my condiments, my things to fill houses and minutes/ The fat is starting, where are my things?/ My mixtures, my bones, my decorations/ old bread, old tamarind switch./ Will you bathe me in oils?/ Will you tie me in white cloth?/ Call me by my praise name/ Sing me Oshun song./ against this clamour [Background noise of voices inaudible] / Ancestor old woman/ Send my things after me./ One moment, old lady more questions./ What happened to the ship in your leap? The boatswain, did he scan the passage’s terrible wet face/ The navigator, did he blink?/ Or steer that ship through your screaming night?/ The captain did he lash two slaves to the rigging, for example?/ Lady! My things/ Water leaden, my maps, my compass/ After all, what is the political position of stars?\n10:29\tAudio Recording, Dionne Brand, 1988:\tDrop your crusted cough, where you want./ My hands make precious things out of phlegm./ Ancestor wood/ Ancestor dog/ Ancestor [tape recording skips] Old man, dry stick, mustache, skin, and bone./ Why didn’t you remember? /Why didn’t you remember the name of our tribe?/Why didn’t you tell me before you died?/ Old horse, you made the white man ride you/ You shot off your leg for him./ Old man, the name of our tribe is all I wanted./ Instead, you went to the swamps and bush and rice paddies for the trading company and they buried you in water/ Crocodile, tears. /It would have been better to remember the name of our tribe./ Now, mosquitoes dance a ballet over your grave and the old woman buried with you wants to leave./ One thing for sure, dismembered woman, when you decide you are alone/ When you decide you are alone, /when you dance, it’s your own broken face.\n11:24\tAudio Recording, Dionne Brand, 1988:\tWhen you eat your own plate of stones/ For damn sure you are alone./ Where do you think you are going dismembered woman?/ Limbs chopped off at the ankles./ When you decide, believe me, you are alone./ Sleep, sleep, tangential phase, sleep,/ Sleeping, or waking/ Understand you are alone./ Diamonds pour from your vagina,/ and your breasts drip healing copper/ But listen, women, dismembered continent/ You are alone./See crying fool,/ You want to talk in gold/ You will cry in iron./ You want to dig up stones./ You will bury flesh./ You think you don’t need oils and amulets compelling powder and rely on smoke./ You want to throw people in cesspits./ Understand dismembered one, ululant /You are alone./ When waterfalls work, land surfaces./ I was sent to this cave./ I went out one day like a fool to find this cave, to find clay, to dig up metals to decorate my bare and painful breasts./ Water and clay for a poultice for this gash to find a map an imprint of me anywhere would have kept me calm./ Anywhere with description./\n12:30\tAudio Recording, Dionne Brand, 1988:\tInstead, I found a piece of this/ A tooth, a bit of food hung on. /A metatarsal, which resembled mine./ Something else like a note. Musical. /ting ting, but of so little pitch so little lasting perhaps it was my voice./ And this too, a suggestion and insinuation so slight, it may be untrue./ Something moving over the brow as with eyes close to black/ a sensate pull/ Phantom! Knocks the forehead back in the middle of a dance. /No, I can’t say dance. It exaggerates./ Phantom. A bit of image./ A motion close to sound, a sound imaged on the retina resembling sound/ A sound seen out of the corner of my eye./ Emotion heard on my inner ear./ I poured over these like a paleontologist./ I dusted them off like an archeologist/ A swatch of cloth./ Skin, atlas, coarse utility, but enough./ Still only a bit of paint, of dye on the stone./ I can not say crude, but a crude thing./ A hair, a marking. That a fingernail to rock an ancient wounded scratch./ I handle these like a papyrologist contours/ A desert sprung here./ Migrations, suggestions, lies./ Phantom. A table and jotting up artful covert mud./ I noted these like a geopolitical scientist./ I will take any evidence of me even that carved in the sky by the fingerprints of clouds every day. Even those that do not hold a wind’s impression.\n14:06\tAudio Recording, Dionne Brand, 1988:\n \n\nOk. That’s it. [Audience Applause]\n \n\n14:08\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat was the Dionne Brand reading from her book, Primitive Offensive. The recording was played on Vancouver’s co-op radio on August 7th, 1988 and the recording is held by the archives of radiofree rainforest. Now part of SFU library’s digital collections.\n \n\n \n\n14:32\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Start Music: Theme Music]] ShortCuts is mixed and mastered by Judith Burr, hosted by Hannah McGregor and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Head to SpokenWeb.ca to find out more about the sounds in this mini-series and to learn more about SpokenWeb and the SpokenWeb Podcast. Thanks for listening. End Music: Theme Music] [Music: SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music: [Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9663","cataloger_name":["Ella,Hooper"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 2.10, Alone Together, 19 June 2021, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/alone-together/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2021],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/12152e0c-52d7-49a7-9eea-0dccee09b096/audio/ff0bcf56-e9fc-44bf-aa09-abfd557fce3f/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-2-10-alone-together.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:19:37\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"18,903,084 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"shortcuts-2-10-alone-together\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/alone-together/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2021-07-19\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve O, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"AUDIO SOURCES\\n\\nAli Barillaro’s recording of reading of her blog post, “Tanya Davis performing ‘How to Be Alone’” on SPOKENWEBLOG, 6 August, 2020. \\n\\nTanya Davis performing “How to Be Alone,” recorded at The Words & Music Show at Casa del Popolo, Montreal on 12 December 2012. Listen to the entire audio here: https://spokenweb.ca/tanya-davis-performing-how-to-be-alone/.\\n\\nExcerpt of Cover of “Digging my own grave” by Thrice performed by Ali Barillaro and Vincent Pigeon here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y6H9QuL6q8\\n\\nRESOURCES\\n\\nWatch Tanya Davis and Andrea Dorfman’s 2010 film of the poem “How to Be Alone”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs\\n\\nWatch the 2020 film made by Tanya Davis and Andrea Dorfman in which they revisit the poem as “How to Be at Home”: https://www.nfb.ca/film/how-to-be-at-home\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549805334528,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["For our last minisode of season two, ShortCuts dives into the archives of The Words & Music Show, a monthly series of poetry, spoken word, music, and dance performances that has been happening in Montreal for over twenty years. Last year, SpokenWeb RA Ali Barillaro was digitizing that collection when she heard a recording that caught her attention. It was a recording of Tanya Davis performing “How to Be Alone.” As Ali listened, she felt a dissonance between Davis’s version of aloneness as freedom and the imposed and necessary aloneness of the pandemic. Along with being an academic, Ali is a singer – and this ShortCuts takes us into Ali’s story of navigating her artistic practice through the pandemic. We embark on this sonic journey by starting with one recording – the recording of Davis – which shows what you can make when you pause to notice what catches your attention.\n\n\n00:03\tHannah McGregor:\t[Start Music: Jazzy Techno] Listeners, we want to hear from you. What short clip of literary sound would you propose we listen to in an episode of ShortCuts? If you’re a researcher with the SpokenWeb Project, pitch an episode to ShortCuts season three. You can start with a blog post on SPOKENWEBLOG, or go straight for pitching us an episode. If you’re a fan of the show, please suggest an idea by emailing SpokenWebPodcast@gmail.com. [End Music: Jazzy Techno]\n00:43\tHannah McGregor:\t[Start Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] Welcome to the SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights, that’s every second week, following the monthly [[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals] SpokenWeb Podcast episode, join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts miniseries. We’ll share with you, especially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? ShortCuts is an extension of the ShortCuts blog posts, on SPOKENWEBLOG. So, if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to SpokenWeb.ca for more. Without further ado, here is Katherine MacLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini stories about how literature sounds. [Start Music: SpokenWeb Theme Music, Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n01:45\tKatherine McLeod:\t[End Music: SpokenWeb Theme Music] Welcome to ShortCuts where we listen closely and carefully to a short cut [Sound Effect: Scissor Snip] from the audio collections of SpokenWeb. This is the last episode of our second season. It’s a chance to think back to our sonic journeys into the archives and the questions that have emerged from them. How does archival listening listen to liveness and sociality? How do we hear time? How do we hear the marking of time in a recording? How can a podcast episode hold sound with care? This season of ShortCuts was a practice in feminist listening with recordings of poets Muriel Rukeyser, Margaret Allison, Phyllis Webb, Alexei Perry, Cox, Dionne Brand, and now in this final ShortCuts for season two, Tanya Davis. We’ll start with the clip of Davis from the archives. Usually on ShortCuts, we build towards hearing the clip. But this time we’ll be starting with it because this ShortCuts is as much about the clip as it is about the conversation afterwards, with a special guest. Let’s dive in. Here is spoken word and musician, Tanya Davis, performing “How To Be Alone” at the Words & Music Show in Montreal. It was performed on the stage of Casa del Popolo on December 16th, 2012.\n03:14\tAudio Recording, Tanya Davis, Words & Music Show, 2012:\tIf you are at first lonely, be patient./ If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were you weren’t okay with it, just wait./ You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it./ Start with the acceptable places./ The bathroom, the coffee, shop the library, /where you can stall and read the paper where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there/ where you can browse the stacks and smell the books/ you’re not supposed to talk much anyways, so it’s safe there./ There’s also the gym./ If you’re shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors, you could put headphones in./ And there’s public transportation because we all gotta go places/ and there’s prayer and meditation./ No one will think less if you’re hanging with your breath, seeking peace and salvation./ Start simple./ Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.\n04:06\tAudio Recording, Tanya Davis, Words & Music Show, 2012:\tThe lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by chow downers/ employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they like you will be alone./ Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone./ When you were comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner./ A restaurant with linen and silverware./ You’re no less intriguing a person if you’re eating solo dessert and cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger./ In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were./ Go to the movies, where does dark and soothing,/ alone in your seat to midst of fleeting community./ And then take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you./ Stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you.\n04:56\tAudio Recording, Tanya Davis, Words & Music Show, 2012:\tDance like no one’s watching because they’re probably not./ And if they are assume it is with best and human intentions,/ the way bodies move genuinely to beats is after all gorgeous and affecting/ Dance until you’re sweating and beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things/ Down your back like a brook of blessings./ Go to the woods alone./ Trees and squirrels will watch for you./ Roam an unfamiliar city,/ there are always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting./ Give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute./ And those conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches may have never happened had you not been there by yourself./ Society is afraid of alone though./ Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements./ Like people must have problems if after a while nobody is dating them./ But alone is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it/ You could stand…\n \n\n05:58\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat archival audio was selected by SpokenWeb researcher, Ali Barillaro. Ali selected it for a ShortCuts blog post, or what was then called Audio of the Week. Ali is a SpokenWeb researcher who recently completed her MA at Concordia. You may have heard her present her research on audience applause in archival collections, and you very likely have heard her voice. She sings the vocals [Start Music: SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music, Instrumental with Feminine Vocals] in the SpokenWeb Podcast theme song. [End Music: SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music, Instrumental with Feminine Vocals] And so, it is very fitting that my conversation with her here veers into talking about singing and performing and the challenges of doing that through times in which our access to spaces that might otherwise have been used for artistic practices have changed. I invited her to revisit what she had said about Tanya Davis’ recording.\n \n\n06:51\tAli Barillaro:\tI originally came across this recording of Tanya Davis performing “How To Be Alone” a few months ago while feeling thoroughly uncertain about life in the midst of a pandemic.\n07:00\tAli Barillaro:\tI’m someone who under normal circumstances would gladly endorse and espouse Davis’s hopeful, poetic guide to finding freedom in solitude and learning to be comfortable inside your own head. But what struck me about this performance was that it made me realize just how far removed I now felt from Davis’s concept of being alone. The public locations listed as ideal spots to practice being by yourself, the coffee shops, libraries, movie theaters, and even the bus and Metro were no longer available to me. The version of alone evoked in the poem is not the alone most of us have come to know since March, 2020. And it’s hard not to feel a sense of loss while listening. The echo trailing each of Tanya’s words, fittingly conjures up an image in my mind of the poet reciting her work alone at the center of a vast empty room. Even though I know she’s speaking to a crowd from the small stage at Casa del Popolo in Montreal. Though, the recording left me longing for what felt like a lost form of solitude, I have also come to hear it as a calming and quiet reminder to try to find peace amongst the chaos, to reach out to community and loved ones however we can, and to be patient with yourself, as you learn to adapt to a new normal.\n \n\n08:21\tKatherine McLeod:\tYou wrote that about a year ago, was it?\n \n\n08:24\tAli Barillaro:\tYeah it’s been a while.\n \n\n08:24\tKatherine McLeod:\t– Yeah, July, 2020. What does it feel like for you to hear yourself reflect on Tanya Davis’s recording in that way?\n \n\n08:35\tAli Barillaro:\tIt was kind of an interesting experience actually, because I think I do feel differently now. Like I’m not at that same point that I was when I wrote that and when I was experiencing those emotions. With vaccines coming out, getting my first dose, having an appointment for my second dose, having seen quite a lot more people outdoors… I do still have some lingering sense of that strangeness of this new concept of alone and what that means to be alone while we’re still in the midst of a pandemic, even though circumstances have changed.\n \n\n09:11\tKatherine McLeod:\tIt struck me with listening to it, how they’re actually very public ways of being alone, like the sitting on the bus. And he says the phrase like “alone is a freedom” and just that very statement is much more complicated when alone –that doesn’t feel like a freedom. [Laughs] So, yeah.\n \n\n09:35\tAli Barillaro:\tIt’s actually made me reflect back on something – I used to not really like the phrase “alone together”, but I think that has been –anyone who’s been living through this pandemic and lockdowns and isolation but that lives with a partner, a roommate, someone else that has really [Laughs] – that sentiment, that phrase has really become a reality for a lot of people, and how to navigate that differently when you might have lived together beforehand, but things are different because it’s really most of the time just going to be you and maybe this one other person and how that changes the dynamic of your own relationship, but also of your own personal activities, whether that be work, or hobbies, or just relaxing. Things are now different. So at first, around the time, especially when I was writing this piece for the blog, I think I was feeling a little bit boxed in and in my own apartment. Because, my partner works from home.\n10:39\tAli Barillaro:\tAnd we do have an office space, which we do use as well. He’s also a musician and we use that space normally for music, for recording things or just working on things. But that has had to change during the day, the regular nine to five. I don’t have access to that space. So that is one limitation that I had to deal with. But then in addition to that, what was really frustrating as well on top of that is yes, I have access to the rest of my apartment, but it’s not– I don’t live in a giant apartment. And if I was going to be making a lot of noise that comes with either just practicing or wanting to write or record something, I can’t do that either during those time periods. So that was a block that I felt that I had.\n11:28\tAli Barillaro:\tAnd it was a little bit de-motivating for quite a long time. I’ll also say additionally that even though my partner and I both do music, we really do things or we did tend to do things quite separately where he has his endeavors and I have mine. And I’m also someone who’s very private about music, even though I like to share things when they’re like – when I’m happy with them when they’re finalized. But there is a huge amount of vulnerability that comes with even if it’s not your own original music and even if you’re just working on a cover song, like I’m very –I get very nervous even around this person who is so close to me. So finding times when this person is around to just like practice and maybe make mistakes and things like that was a little hard for me at first.\n12:26\tAli Barillaro:\tBut more recently, just in maybe like the last couple of months even, I have started to say like, “Hey, you know, well, we can try to, we both like this song why don’t we try to work on this together on the weekends when you’re not having to work and be in that space.” And it’s actually been really great. So I’ve tried to [Laughs] – I guess also with this change in mindset that I’ve had in terms of the pandemic in general and aloneness in general, how things have sort of changed that relation to music and performance with this particular person who I’ve been alone together with has also transformed, which has been really lovely. And we did a acoustic cover of a song called “Digging My Own Grave” which is quite an emotional song actually. [Laughs] [Start Music: “Digging My Own Grave”]\n13:31\tAli Barillaro:\t[Music Continues in the Background: “Digging My Own Grave”] It really interesting experience as well, because I was doing primarily the lead vocals on it. And he’s done quite a few covers of their songs prior, just on his own. So it was kind of a nice change as well – and dynamic of that he would be there to be playing the music, but also to be doing the backup vocals and that I would be taking the lead on it. And we had to do some transposing to get that to work for both of us to get that range to be okay on both ends and that we both sound good [Laughs] making this. So yeah, we recorded that in the office slash music space, filmed it just a very basic video and put that together and up on my YouTube channel [Music Continues as Full Interlude: “Digging My Own Grave”].\n14:15\tAli Barillaro:\t[End Music: “Digging My Own Grave”] And people –friends and family were really enjoying it, they were like, “Oh, it’s really nice finally, that we get to hear the two of you together. And not just one of you, like it’s, it’s nice. It’s a nice change.”\n \n\n14:57\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat is beautiful. And thinking that it’s yeah, the collaboration, the coming together also is that –it almost is representative of the energy that like, okay, we’re slowly being able to see people that we hadn’t seen in a long time. So it feels like it’s part of that energy and part of that slow coming back to being together. One thing I wanted to ask you was about, if you could tell us how you found the Tanya Davis recording in your work for SpokenWeb and the Words & Music archive.\n \n\n15:28\tAli Barillaro:\tSure! One thing I’ll say is it’s been actually probably the best part of my SpokenWeb experience is getting to listen to these collections that we have access to. Because even though I’ve lived in Montreal my whole life, and that I think that I’m involved in the entertainment and the arts scenes and things like that, I didn’t know about the Words & Music Show, even though it’s been around for 20 years. So getting introduced to that and then fully diving into, I was responsible for about half of that. So about 10 years worth of recordings of these shows was really amazing. And essentially with that work, beyond just researching things, I did have to sit and listen. We weren’t creating full transcripts of things, but to an extent we were doing some transcription work which required full listen throughs, if you will.\n16:26\tAli Barillaro:\tSo I became familiar with quite a few different people who I didn’t know about and became very quickly interested in. So sometimes something would catch you, for whatever reason for maybe the types of work they’re doing with sound, especially some of the poets that are more invested in sound poetry, which again is something I wasn’t familiar with. Some of the music that I had never heard from people, either from Montreal, from other parts of Canada, and this particular recording, I don’t know if it was the– I think it was honestly the quality of the sound that really brought my attention to it and made me remember it. It was that echo to everything and how still it was, because often on those recordings, you can hear quite a bit of shuffling around in the audience. You can hear some noise from the bar of people, their glasses moving around or hushed sort of conversations. There’s a lot of extra sort of background noise in many of those recordings. And this was really as if everybody was like holding their breath and just listening. So I think that’s really what made it stand out beyond obviously the content and me being like, oh, wow, this is [Laughs] relatable, but also not quite relatable right now. But yeah, it was that particular sound of her voice and the way it was amplified that really got my attention, I think, when I was doing this kind of work every day.\n \n\n18:01\tKatherine McLeod:\tAs I talked with Allie, I started thinking about how she is an archival listener who has actually attended, in her own way, almost all of the Words & Music shows. No, she wasn’t standing in a crowd at Casa del Popolo, but she was listening to them and she was hearing the communities forming through performances. She was hearing how artists were invited back often, artists were trying out new work, artists perhaps performing the same piece, but many years later and with a different introduction and in a different context of other performers. Her listening was showing how an archive can document communities forming through sound. [Music Interlude: Strings]\n18:41\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Start Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] You’ve been listening to ShortCuts. Head to SpokenWeb.ca to find out more about the sounds of this episode. Check the show notes for this one to find bonus content, or rather Tanya Davis also revisiting “How To Be Alone” over this past year. Plus find links to more of Ali Barillaro’s music. ShortCuts is a monthly series as part of the SpokenWeb Podcast. It is hosted by Hannah McGregor, mixed and mastered by Judith Burr, and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thank you for listening. [End Music Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9685","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 1.2, Audio of the Month – Improvising at a Poetry Reading, 17 February 2020, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-improvising-at-a-poetry-reading/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2020],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/f6a7d497-f14f-46d9-a761-055aa0f16b7d/sw-minisode-2_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"sw-minisode-2_tc.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:06:15\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"6,075,917 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"SW Minisode 2\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-improvising-at-a-poetry-reading/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2020-02-17\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[]"],"_version_":1853670549806383104,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["EPISODE SUMMARY\nAs we come to the end of a holiday long weekend here in Canada, it’s time for a new episode of SpokenWeb’s Audio of The Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds. This month Katherine shares a recording of Canadian poet Maxine Gadd reading “Shore Animals” with improvised flute by Richard Sommer (1972).\n\n(0:00)\tMusic\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n(00:09)\tHannah McGregor\tWelcome to the SpokenWeb minisodes. Each month on alternate fortnights—that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode—join me, Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month miniseries. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives. An extension of Katherine’s Audio of the Week series at spokenweb.ca, Katherine brings her favourite audio each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. Just in time for holiday Monday listening here in Canada, whether you’re spending time with family or enjoying a solo moment, sit back, relax, and join Katherine McLeod for February’s SpokenWeb Audio of the Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds.\n(01:05)\tTheme Music\t[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n(01:10)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Maxine Gadd] Well. Okay. Do you want to do, oh, do you want to try, try improvising to, to a chip that’s here? I’ll let you read it.\n(01:18)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Richard Sommer] Seriously, you wanna do that?\n(01:18)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] Yeah. It’s just going to be some [inaudible].\n(01:19)\tAudio Recording\t[Richard] I don’t know if I should…\n(01:22)\tKatherine McLeod\tIn this Audio of the Month, we’re traveling back to February 1972, when poets Maxine Gadd and Andreas Schroeder read in Montreal. They read at Sir George Williams University, or what is now Concordia. They read on February 18th in the Hall Building in Room H-651. The reading started at 9:00 PM. Yes, readings started late and they went on for a long time. After reading for about 45 minutes, Maxine Gadd invited the host of the evening, Richard Sommer, to improvise on the flute. He improvised along with her reading the poem “Shore Animals.” Before starting to improvise, we can hear a negotiation between Gadd and Sommer about what to read and how to perform together, a process that is its own audible improvisation.\n(02:15)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Maxine Gadd] Now, how it goes. You have to keep quiet until… [Random Flute Notes] See, now… He’s never done this one before.\n(02:31)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Richard Sommer] What, what, yeah, what do you want me to do then?\n(02:32)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] Okay, this is called “Shore Animals” and it says, “speech feasts peace with flute” and the flute has to listen.\n(02:38)\tAudio Recording\t[Richard] Okay.\n  (02:39)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] And it can pl–, it can speak, too.\n(02:42)\tKatherine McLeod\tThen the audio clip that you’ll hear includes the first two minutes of a six-minute improvisation. Their improvisation is a singular moment when an audience member—in this case, Richard Sommer—formally performs in the Sir George Williams Poetry Series, though at the same time, this recording reminds listeners that the audience is always present, ready to improvise, to interject, and even to interrupt. And that the audience is also what we are listening to as archival listeners.\n(03:16)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Maxine Gadd] What, the food? I think it’s over there. For fun. [Papers Crinkling] The same message. I, I’m asking… Richard is gonna make some noise with my flute.\n(03:32)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Richard Sommer] I’ll make some noise if you give me your microphone.\n(03:33)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] Okay. Which one you want? Let’s share it. Is–\n(03:39)\tAudio Recording\t[Richard] It doesn’t make any difference.\n(03:39)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] It goes with a [inaudible].\n(03:42)\tAudio Recording\t[Richard] When’d you do that?\n(03:43)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] What?\n(03:44)\tAudio Recording\t[Richard] This, this knot.\n(03:45)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] I’ve tied myself in there.\n(03:50)\tAudio Recording\t[Richard] Here we go.\n(03:59)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] [inaudible] I can’t find it. [Long Pause] Pieces, pieces, pieces. Oh, here it is. Now, how it goes. You have to keep quiet until… [Random Flute Notes] See, now… He’s never done this one before.\n(04:17)\tAudio Recording\t[Richard] What, what, yeah, what do you want me to do then?\n(04:19)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] Okay, this is called “Shore Animals” and it says, “speech feasts peace with flute” and the flute has to listen.\n(04:27)\tAudio Recording\t[Richard] Okay.\n(04:27)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] And it can pl–, it can speak, too. You have to listen to it, yeah, you never heard it before.\n(04:34)\tAudio Recording\t[Richard] I think it’s learning how to speak.\n(04:39)\tAudio Recording\t[Maxine] It’s called “Shore Animals,” it’s a speech piece with flute. [Maxine Begins To Recite, Richard Plays Flute] So hearing where the poppy stopped me, small chance to star spiel, all you have told me, gone, false and beautiful gods and groves. People truth. Put it into song. When the traffic is gone, gone, gone a fleet in in the air. My debt to your tongue, Saturn. In your minds, I’ve split a spleen, lust my lust. Come along, fog. Oh! Soul, I have to whistle to you. [Audience Laughs] [Whistling]\n(05:36)\tKatherine McLeod\tThat was Maxine Gadd reading “Shore Animals” with Richard Sommer improvising on the flute at a reading that took place in Montreal on February 18th, 1972. [Begin Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] Head to spokenweb.ca to find out more about the Audio of the Month and how to listen to the entire recording. My name’s Katherine McLeod and tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives.\n(05:49)\tKatherine McLeod\t[Begin Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] Head to spokenweb.ca to find out more about the Audio of the Month and how to listen to the entire recording. My name’s Katherine McLeod and tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives.\n(06:06)\tMusic\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9691","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 1.7, Audio of the Month – As Though Her Voice is Dancing, 20 July 2020, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-as-though-her-voice-is-dancing/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2020],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/9112f64d-f980-465b-8252-4f130d4ea0f6/sw-minisode-ep-7_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"sw-minisode-ep-7_tc.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:05:45\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"5,599,861 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"SW Minisode Ep 7\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-as-though-her-voice-is-dancing/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2020-07-20\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[]"],"_version_":1853670549807431680,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["In episode 7 of The SpokenWeb Podcast (“The Voice is Intact”), producer Hannah McGregor and guest Jen Sookfong Lee listen together to Gwendolyn MacEwen reading the poem “The Zoo” (recorded in Montreal, 1966). As we listen to them listening on the podcast, we hear a gasp and even an exclamation: “Melodious!” What was it in her voice that they were responding to? To try to answer this question through your own experience of listening, this Audio of the Month features another poem of MacEwen’s in this same 1966 recording: “I Should Have Predicted,” published in The Shadow Maker (1969).\n\n00:00\n\nMusic:\n\n[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n\n00:10\n\nHannah McGregor:\n\nWelcome to our SpokenWeb minisodes. Each month on alternate fortnights—that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode—join me, Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month miniseries. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives. An extension of Katherine’s Audio of the Week series at spokenweb.ca, Katherine brings her favourite audio each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds.\n\n01:00\n\nTheme Music:\n\n[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n\n01:03\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nIn this Audio of the Month, we’re listening to the voice of Canadian poet Gwendolyn MacEwen. Now, if you’re a regular SpokenWeb Podcast listener, you’ll recognize MacEwen’s voice from episode seven: “The Voice Is Intact.” That episode was produced by Hannah McGregor and featured interviews with Jen Sookfong Lee and myself, Katherine McLeod. At the start of the episode, Hannah and Jen listened to MacEwen’s voice as she reads a poem called “The Zoo.”\n\n01:34\n\nHannah McGregor:\n\nHave you ever heard her read?\n\n01:35\n\nJen Sookfong Lee:\n\nNo, I’ve never heard her voice.\n\n01:35\n\nHannah McGregor:\n\nOh my God, do you want to?\n\n01:35\n\nJen Sookfong Lee:\n\nYeah!\n\n01:36\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Audio, Gwendolyn MacEwen reading “The Zoo,” overlapping with Hannah McGregor and Jen Sookfong Lee’s commentary] A fugitive from all those truths, which are too true, the great clawing ones and the fire-breathers,–\n\n01:46\n\nJen Sookfong Lee:\n\n[Gasps]\n\n01:46\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n–the ones that rake the flesh–\n\n01:47\n\nJen Sookfong Lee:\n\nSo much nicer with her voice!\n\n01:47\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n–like piranhas, and those that crush the bones to chalk and those that bear their red teeth in the nights.\n\n01:55\n\nJen Sookfong Lee:\n\nSo melodious, her voice.\n\n01:56\n\nAudio Recording:\n\nMy mind emulates,–\n\n01:58\n\nJen Sookfong Lee:\n\nI’ve never used the word melodious.\n\n01:59\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n–dragon, fish, and snake and shoots fire to melt the Arctic night–\n\n02:03\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nMelodious, yes. So melodious, her voice. That was their response to her voice now, in 2020. And to be in awe of her voice has been a common response ever since MacEwen started reading poems in the 1960s. She read at places like the Bohemian Embassy in Toronto, where poets would gather on stage to read over the sound of a noisy espresso machine. MacEwen would step onto the stage and, as she started reading, in fact, as she often started reciting her poems by heart, her voice would captivate listeners. That voice is one reason for selecting MacEwen for this month’s Audio of the Month. But another is that there is a very memorable moment of MacEwen introducing one poem in particular in SpokenWeb’s audio collection. To set the scene: the reading was in 1966 at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia), and it was a joint reading with Phyllis Webb. Part way through the reading, MacEwen introduces the poem “I Should Have Predicted.”\n\n03:11\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Audio, Gwendolyn MacEwen introducing “I Should Have Predicted] This is a poem which, oddly enough, came out in a Mexican magazine in Spanish not too long ago looking completely unrecognizable to me. It’s called “I Should Have Predicted.”\n\n03:27\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nI haven’t been able to locate this publication, but if you have any ideas about which magazine this could have been in, please do get in touch. For now, we know that it exists because of this recording. As we listen to it, hear how MacEwen reads, how she pauses, how her articulation of the poem makes it rise and then fall. Her pacing is exquisite. It is as though she is dancing the poem, as though her voice is dancing.\n\n04:03\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Audio, Gwendolyn MacEwen reciting “I Should Have Predicted] I should have predicted the death of this city. I could have predicted it if only there had been no such pretty flowers. No such squares filled with horses and their golden riders. By this I mean that outside all was tame and lucky. But inside, oh, inside houses were wilder things, dynasties, wars, empires crumbling, chariots housed in halls, emperors in cupboards, queens and generals in bed, kingdoms rising and falling between the sheets. Thus I did not predict the death of this city. I was deceived by fountains and apple trees. How could I know what civil wars raged inside out of my sight, which focused only on the horses and the gold, deceptive city.\n\n05:06\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nThat was Gwendolyn MacEwen reading “I Should Have Predicted” in 1966 in Montreal.\n\n05:18\n\nMusic:\n\n[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n\n05:18\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nFind the full recording of this reading by heading to spokenweb.ca. My name is Katherine McLeod and my thanks to Hannah McGregor and Stacey Copeland for their help on the production of this minisode. Stay tuned for the next Audio of the Month: a deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives."],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9977","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 3.1, Sounds, 18 October 2021, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/sounds/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2021],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/947a563e-79cd-4cab-8bfa-70414846cd5b/audio/600a1e98-d131-485f-a301-23e7df96f9f3/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-3-1-sounds.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:11:39\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"11,259,864 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"ShortCuts 3.1 Sounds\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/sounds/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2021-10-18\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[]"],"_version_":1853670549808480256,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["ShortCuts is back! Season Three of ShortCuts begins with a listening exercise. We attune our ears to what it sounds like and feels like to hear archival clips ‘cut’ out of context. Join ShortCuts producer Katherine McLeod in this exploration of the sonic and affective place-making of ShortCuts as podcast. What kind of creative and critical work can these archival sounds do? On their own, or together as an archival remix? \n\n00:09\tShortCuts Theme Music:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n \n\n00:10\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to a new season of SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series.\n \n\n00:28\tHannah McGregor:\tWe’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? We are delighted to have you with us this season as Katherine brings us more voices from the archives, more conversations, and more thoughtful reactions from her practice of close archival listening.\n \n\n00:56\tHannah McGregor:\tShortCuts is an extension of the ShortCuts blog posts on SpokenWeb blog. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca [Sound Effect: Wind Chime] for more.\n \n\n01:06\tHannah McGregor:\tIf you’re a researcher with the SpokenWeb Project, think about joining Katherine on ShortCuts to discuss an archival clip that has impacted your work. Pitch Katherine your ShortCuts minisode idea by emailing spokenwebpodcast@gmail.com. [End Music: Instrumental Electronic].\n \n\n01:21\tHannah McGregor:\tNow, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts: mini stories about how literature sounds. [SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music: Instrumental Overlapped with Feminine Voice]\n \n\n01:34\tKatherine McLeod:\tHere we are in season three of ShortCuts. We’re ready to take more deep dives into the archives, through listening closely and carefully to short cuts [Sound Effect: Scissors] of audio. My name is Katherine McLeod. And, over these past seasons, I’ve come to understand ShortCuts as an archival and affective place made through sound where we can talk, listen, feel, question, and think together about archival sound and the world it makes and unmakes. Welcome. This season begins with a warm-up. It’s a listening exercise to get us ready and attuned to archival listening. The short cuts will be from past ShortCuts episodes. Yes, we’re getting meta here by diving into the archives of ShortCuts. We’re doing this in order to hear what ShortCuts sounds like, what kind of place it has made so far, and to hear what it does creatively and critically with its sound. It’s an exercise in a podcast listening to itself in order to grow. All of the sounds will be clips from the ShortCuts archives, and that includes my voiceover. From now on, all of the sounds that you will hear will be found sounds, sounds, sounds… [Katherine’s voice overlapping] And I say that while holding out my arms gesturing as though I’m attempting to hold the sound.\n \n\n03:09\tMusical Interlude:\tShortCuts Theme Music:\n \n\n03:10\tTanya Davis, Audio from ShortCuts 2.10:\tIf you are at first lonely, be patient. If you’ve not been alone much, or if you weren’t okay with it, just wait.\n \n\n03:19\tAli Barillaro, Audio from ShortCuts 2.10:\tI originally came across this recording of Tanya Davis performing “How to be Alone” a few months ago while feeling thoroughly uncertain [Music: Feminine Voice from SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music] about life in the midst of a pandemic.\n \n\n03:30\tKatherine McLeod:\tHow can you hear time?\n \n\n03:33\tMuriel Rukeyser, Audio from ShortCuts 2.5:\t[Reading poem] Every elegy is the present.\n \n\n03:35\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.5:\tShe has never read it like this before she cuts it up.\n \n\n03:40\tMuriel Rukeyser, Audio from ShortCuts 2.5:\tIt’s called “An Elegy in Joy,” and it’s just the beginning piece. I wanted to do it tonight this way. I’ve never cut it up. Cut it up.\n \n\n03:49\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.5:\t[Reading poem] Every elegy is the present, freedom eating our hearts. Death and explosion and the world un-begun.\n \n\n03:56\tMuriel Rukeyser, Audio from ShortCuts 2.5:\t[Voice of Muriel Rukeyser overlapping with same words] Death, and explosion, and the world un-begun.\n \n\n04:03\tMuriel Rukeyser, Audio from ShortCuts 2.5:\tI thought of that very much at the beginning of this month in Mexico.\n \n\n04:08\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.3:\tWhen listening to a recording, can you be listening for time? Can we hear the spring thaw in an archival recording of poetry?\n \n\n04:19\tMargaret Avison, Audio from ShortCuts 2.6:\tThis is one of the very cold days, I guess about 10 below, cold enough. It’s inside the pane of glass separating inside from outside, comes into a certain kind of sky that goes with that, which is like glass. Again…\n \n\n04:43\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.9:\tSomething I’ve been thinking about while preparing this ShortCuts is: What kind of a framework does audio clipped out of context need to feel supported? And I say that while holding out my arms gesturing as though I’m attempting to hold the sound…\n \n\n04:59\tStephanie Bolster, Audio from ShortCuts 2.6:\tI guess I’ll say that I kept wishing I could seize everything and you know, slow it down and take in the details. Just like the density and the abundance of details. I was scribbling things down and couldn’t keep up. And in that sense, it really felt, you know, the same sense I would have had in a live reading.\n \n\n05:15\tMuriel Rukeyser, Audio from ShortCuts 2.2:\tAs you get a very, very rainy evening, why do people come and listen to poems? Well, you got some marvelous summer night. Why do people come and listen to poems? Why do people come and listen to poems? And listen to poems?\n \n\n05:27\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.5:\tI listen again, and again.\n \n\n05:30\tMathieu Aubin, Audio from ShortCuts 2.6:\tWhen I was listening to it, the first and second time – because I re-listened to it immediately –it’s different with you obviously because we’re actually responding, and we’re both in on it – like this is about to happen – and you could feel it generations later. That awkwardness. And you’d be like, everyone’s like ‘eee’…\n \n\n05:49\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.6:\tIt’s also interesting that the whole, sort of, joke or pun is about paper and a letter. And then – this – if she does like slam the book down, or – if she, you know – the presence of the weight of the page – [recording of Margaret Avison overlaps] and you read it and you cry, you crumple it up, you throw it down and there are so many emotions happening in this moment…\n \n\n06:13\tMargaret Avison, Audio from ShortCuts 2.6:\tNow I’ll read it again.\n \n\n06:14\tBarbara Nickel, Audio from ShortCuts 2.6:\tI have from years of reading her I have a certain voice in my mind – the voice of the page – and then to hear her voice for the first time…\n \n\n06:25\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.4:\tListen to the breath that the poem creates. Listen with your body. As the poem breaths – in and out – it is breathing…\n \n\n06:36\tDionne Brand, Audio from ShortCuts 2.9:\t[Reading poem] I will not take any evidence of me, even that carved in the sky by the fingerprints of clouds, every day, even those that do not hold a wind’s impression… Okay that’s enough. [Applause]\n \n\n06:49\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.9:\tThe recording of the reading was broadcast on the radio. On radiofreerainforest… [Sound of the intro music from the radio program and the words “radio free rain forest” are repeated.] radiofreerainforest was a program that aired on Vancouver’s Co-op Radio in the 1980s into the 1990s. [“Words and the sound” are words repeated as part of the intro music from the radio program.]\n \n\n07:09\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.5:\t[Audible sound of background noise ongoing.] The recording doesn’t stop. Nobody presses the button. It continues recording. Now this is the sound of the room. This is the sound of the audience. This is the sound of what it felt like to be there. This recording of the social interactions, even as muffled as they are, conveys the sound of that reading in its time, which is even more interesting to us during our current time of the pandemic when we long for attending an in-person event…\n \n\n07:43\tAlexei Perry Cox, Audio from ShortCuts 2.8:\t[Reading poem] The samba played in the past and rings the ears presently. The sun would set so high and stings the eyes now. A lullaby operates on its own terms and does its own time…\n \n\n07:59\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.8:\t[Alexei’s reading continues in the background.] We’re listening to the audio of Alexei Perry Cox reading by video at The Words and Music Show online on March 29th, 2020. [Audible sounds of Alexei’s daughter Isla.] She’s reading from Finding Places to Make Places, and she’s accompanied by the voice of Isla, her then 18-month old daughter.\n \n\n08:23\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.8:\tWhen I heard Alexei read at The Words and Music Show, I was so moved by her reading. The interweaving voices. What improvisation at a poetry reading.\n \n\n08:34\tMuriel Rukeyser, Audio from ShortCuts 2.2:\t…What is that breathing behind? What is that heartbeat? The breathing goes against the heartbeat and these rhythms are set up and the involuntary muscles… And you see the person do it. But beyond that, something is what we call shared. Something is arrived at. We come to something, with almost unmediated – that is the poem among us, between us, there.\n \n\n09:10\tPhyllis Webb, Audio from ShortCuts 2.7:\t[Reading poem] You brought me clarity, gift after gift, I wear… poems naked in the sunlight on the floor.\n \n\n09:27\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.7:\tIn that reading, we hear the space of the poem and we feel the presence of that space. We see the sunbeam shining through the air. We see the blouse sitting on the floor of the room. We feel the air thick with arrows, between objects, between people, between the poet and subject. What would it be like to hear this in the room in 1966? This expression of female desire to be contained within the archives of this reading series…\n \n\n10:01\tPhyllis Webb, Audio from ShortCuts 2.7:\t[Reading poem] While you were away, I held you like this in my mind.\n \n\n10:06\tKatherine McLeod,  Audio from ShortCuts 2.7:\tWe hear this holding the quietness of each page.\n \n\n10:11\tPhyllis Webb, Audio from ShortCuts 2.7:\t[Reading poem]. In the room. We knew.\n \n\n10:15\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.7:\tWe hear the turning of the page, the room…\n \n\n10:19\tPhyllis Webb, Audio from ShortCuts 2.7:\t[Reading poem] The room that held you… is still here.\n \n\n10:23\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.7:\tWe are listening to desire in the making. Every time we press play on this recording as though we were returning to the same room, the room of the poem…\n \n\n10:32\tMuriel Rukeyser, Audio from ShortCuts 2.2:\tYou get some marvelous summer night. Why do people come and listen to poems?\n \n\n10:36\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.5:\tLet’s hear all of that again.\n \n\n10:39\tMuriel Rukeyser, Audio from ShortCuts 2.5:\t[Reading poem] Who will speak these days. If not, if not you?\n \n\n10:46\tPhyllis Webb, Audio from ShortCuts 2.7:\t[Reading poem]. Poems naked in the sunlight on the floor.\n \n\n10:57\tKatherine McLeod, Audio from ShortCuts 2.7:\tThe room that held you is still here.\n \n\n11:08\tMusic Interlude:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n \n\n11:09\tKatherine McLeod:\tShortcuts is mixed and mastered by Judith Burr, hosted by Hannah McGregor and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Head to SpokenWeb.ca to find out more about the sounds in this minisode and to learn more about SpokenWeb and The SpokenWeb Podcast. Thanks for listening. [End Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n "],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9978","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 3.2, What the Archive Remembers, 22 November 2021, McLeod "],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/what-the-archive-remembers/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2021],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/ff53ab4f-79e1-483d-90f4-6eb9312b14de/audio/32603c04-9629-4f27-ae76-99d905b58fde/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-3-2-what-the-archive-remembers.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:12:36\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"12,172,687 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"Shortcuts 3.2 What the Archive Remembers\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/what-the-archive-remembers/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2021-11-22\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"SHOW NOTES\\n\\nBowering, George. “bpNichol: 1944-1988.” The Long Poem / Remembering bp Nichol. Spec. issue of Canadian Literature 122-123 (Autumn/Winter 1989): 294-297.\\n\\nMcGregor, Hannah. “The Voice Is Intact: Finding Gwendolyn MacEwen in the Archive.” The SpokenWeb Podcast, 6 April 2020.\\n\\nPolyck-O’Neill, Julia. “Lisa Robertson and the Feminist Archive.” The SpokenWeb Podcast. 1 November 2021.\\n\\nPound, Scott. “Sounding out the Difference: Orality and Repetition in bpNichol.” Open Letter: bp + 10 (Fall 1998) 50-58.\\n\\nSingh, Julietta. No Archive Will Restore You. Punctum Books, 2018.\\n\\nAUDIO CLIPS\\n\\nAudio for this ShortCuts is clipped from a recording of Ear Rational: Sound Poems 1966-1980 available on PennSound, a partner affiliate of the SpokenWeb research network, and from a recording of bpNichol and Lionel Kearns from the Sir George Williams Poetry Series audio collection.\\n\\nNichol, bp. “Pome Poem.” PennSound. A link to the same recording is also available on the official bpNichol archive. \\n\\n“I wanted to forget you.” bpNichol reading with Lionel Kearns. Sir George Williams Poetry Series. Montreal, 22 November 1968. https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/bpnichol-and-lionel-kearns-at-sgwu-1968/#1\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549808480257,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["In this episode, ShortCuts explores one of the methods of listening from the previous episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast. That episode, produced by Julia Polyck-O’Neill, listens to the emotional weight of archives. Julia’s conversations with poet Lisa Robertson uncover the ways in which archives record the relationships between memory, affect, and mortality. In this ShortCuts, producer Katherine McLeod listens to the emotional weight of archives through a recording of bpNichol, reading with Lionel Kearns in Montreal on November 22, 1968. How does the archive record loss? What can the archive never record? And what do we remember as listeners?\n\n00:00\tShortCuts Theme Music:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n \n\n00:10\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to a new season of SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series. We’ll share with you, especially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask, what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? An extension of the ShortCuts blog posts on spoken web blog, this series brings Katherine’s favourite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to SpokenWeb.ca for more. [End Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini-stories about how literature sounds. [SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music: Instrumental Overlapped with Feminine Voice]\n \n\n01:18\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to ShortCuts, [Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Music] a place where we listen closely and carefully to short ‘cuts’ [Sound Effect: Scissors] from the audio collections of SpokenWeb. In this episode, we’ll be using the last full episode of The Spoken Web Podcast to inspire our listening. The last episode was “Lisa Robertson and the Feminist Archive”. The recordings that we’ll be listening to in this ShortCuts are of the poet bpNichol. We’ll mostly be listening to a recording of a reading that bpNichol gave on November 22nd, 1968, as part of the Sir George Williams Poetry Series. Now you might be wondering what does bpNichol have to do with “Lisa Robertson and the Feminist Archive”; well, I’m not here to make a case for what they have in common though, if I wanted to start somewhere, I’d start with Coach House Books. What I do want to draw upon from that episode on Robertson and the feminist archive is how producer Julia Polyck-O’Neill talks about archives as having an emotional weight. That emotional weight in the case of that episode was rooted in hearing a recording of someone’s voice, who is no longer here. Yes, this episode touches upon themes of loss, and please do what you need to do to take care while listening. [End Music: ShortCuts Theme Music]. BpNichol was a poet whose poetry was always aware of presence and absence through its linguistic play, concrete forms and embodied sound. Let’s hear how recordings of his voice invite us to think through and to feel the emotional weight of archives.\n \n\n03:16\tArchival Recording, bpNichol, November 1968:\t[Reading and singing a poem] What is a poem is inside of your body, body, body, body. What is a poem is inside of your head, inside your head, inside your head, inside your head. Oh…\n \n\n03:34\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat was bpNichol reading, reciting, performing “Pome Poem.” It is a poem that I played years ago, over 10 years ago, in fact, as a graduate student, while presenting on a panel and a grand room at the University of Toronto. I had been discussing a dance adaptation of bpNichol’s poetry, and indeed a dance adaptation of his group, The Four Horsemen’s poetry and well, the performance is a story in and of itself. But to get to the point here, I was talking about how they had ended the performance with “Pome Poem,” and the sounds of the words breathing faded out as the theatre lights went down. I let the recording fade out at the end of my presentation.\n \n\n04:20\tArchival Recording, bpNichol, November 1968:\t[Reading/singing a poem] Inside of your, breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing [Fades out]…\n \n\n04:32\tKatherine McLeod:\tAfterwards, one of my co-panelists told me that he was very moved. He hadn’t expected to suddenly hear Nichol’s voice. It was as though he was there. This was years after the passing of Nichol and, with many recordings existing of Nichol’s voice, it didn’t seem strange for me to hear it. But here was someone who was not a Nichol scholar, he wasn’t listening to the audio recordings in the archives, but rather here, he was someone in the midst of a very public event who had just heard the voice of a dear friend. We can have such visceral reactions to hearing a voice in the archives, even if we don’t know that voice personally. I think of the reactions to Gwendolyn MacEwen’s voice – here’s Hannah McGregor and Jen Sookfong Lee reacting to MacEwen’s voice on a previous episode of The Spoken Web Podcast.\n \n\n05:29\tAudio Recording, Hannah McGregor:\tHave you ever heard her read?\n \n\n05:30\tAudio Recording, Jen Sookfong Lee:\tNo. I’ve never heard her voice.\n \n\n05:31\tAudio Recording, Hannah McGregor:\tDo you want to?\n \n\n05:31\tAudio Recording, Jen Sookfong Lee:\tYeah!\n \n\n05:32\tArchival Recording, Gwendolywn MacEwen:\t[Reading a poem] A fugitive from all those truths, which are two true, the great clawing ones and the fire breathers –\n \n\n05:40\tAudio Recording, Jen Sookfong Lee:\t[Audible Gasp]\n \n\n05:41\tArchival Recording, Gwendolywn MacEwen:\t– the ones that rake the flesh like piranhas and those that crush the bones to chalk and those that bare their red teeth in the night –\n \n\n05:51\tAudio Recording, Hannah McGregor:\t[Overlaps with MacEwen’s reading] So melodious her voice! I’ve never used the word melodious.\n \n\n05:55\tArchival Recording, Gwendolywn MacEwen:\t– My mind, emulates dragon, fish and snake and shoots fire to melt the Arctic night\n \n\n06:00\tKatherine McLeod:\tMelodious. Yes. So melodious her voice. And to be in awe of her voice has been a common response ever since MacEwen started reading poems in the 1960s.\n06:12\tKatherine McLeod:\tHearing MacEwen’s voice in the archives is somewhat similar to hearing bpNichol’s in that we’re hearing a poet who has been remembered as one who died too soon. BpNichol in 1988 at age 44 and Gwendolyn MacEwen one year earlier in 1987 at age 47. I think of George Bowering’s memorial for bpNichol in which he writes, quote: “as the years go by, scores of young and other writers and editors will develop the gifts bpNichol passed freely to them, and in that way, his life will go on. We will still bitterly resent the absence of his late life poems.”\n06:57\tKatherine McLeod:\tI think of that too, for MacEwen. Her last book was called Afterworlds, but who is mourning the archival afterlife of MacEwen that we will never know – that we will never hear. There are many unheard archival afterlives that probably will come to mind as I say this. At the same time, Nichol and MacEwen were relatively well-known as poets in Canada, which makes you think about the voices that were never archived. And what about the voices who are recorded in the archives? But those recordings only capture certain periods of their lives and their work? Which versions of themselves are remembered in sound?\n \n\n07:49\tArchival Recording, bpNichol, November 1968:\t[Reading a poem] I wanted to forget you, so I tried to erase your name. I wanted to erase you, I forgot you, your name. I wanted you, I forgot you, I erased your name. You forgot me, I wanted you, you erased my name. I tried you, I forgot you, I erased your name. Wanting you, I forgot you. You erased my name. Erasing you, the wanting forgot, I tried your name.\n \n\n08:31\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat was the last poem that bpNichol read in Montreal at the Sir George Williams Poetry Series on November 22nd, 1968, or at least we think that it was the last poem that he read. Nichol’s reading cuts in and out before we can hear the applause or any final remarks. And so we can only assume that it is the end. Plus the poem, as far as I can tell, is one that Nicol read out loud, but never published in print. And so we don’t know if this was “the end” of the poem. Though, if we listen closely, it does seem like it resolves and is even a bit reminiscent of his poem “Evening Ritual”, which evolves through a similar cycle of actions relating to writing. When the poem ends, at least as it ends on the tape, we don’t hear applause, but we can hear sound on the tape. The recording overlaps with a recording of the same recording. The recording somehow gets recorded over itself. And so there are times like this at the end, when you are listening to Nichol and then you hear the faint sound of Nichol in the background at a different point in the same reading.\n \n\n09:49\tArchival Recording, bpNichol, November 1968:\t[Reading a poem] Erasing you, the wanting forgot, I tried your name. [Static]\n \n\n09:55\tKatherine McLeod:\tHere’s another example of what I mean about the recording over itself, and this time we hear the tape rewind and then repeat something that we’d heard before.\n \n\n10:06\tArchival Recording, bpNichol, November 1968:\t[Voice sounds sped up] I’m going to read a poem I wrote last night. That’s waking [Tape noise of rewinding]…\n \n\n10:14\tArchival Recording, Lionel Kearns, November 1968:\t[Reading a poem] The imagination explodes. They grow old, quick and die. What’s left. Sometimes there’s something left. [Gentle laughter from audience]\n \n\n10:35\tArchival Recording, bpNichol, November 1968:\tI’m going to do that dangerous thing and read a poem I wrote last night, thus waking Lionel up at 7:30 this morning, which he didn’t quite forgive me for. It starts off with a quote from a poem by Bobby Hogg. And well, yesterday we were up in Carlton doing a reading there…\n \n\n10:54\tKatherine McLeod:\tThis ShortCuts is being released right around the time when this reading took place. We can try to re-enact what it would have been like to gather on this November day in downtown Montreal for this reading with bpNichol and Lionel Kearns. What would it have been like to be in that room? What is the archive unable to record? By staging this ShortCuts in November with a November recording, we are participating in a kind of reenactment. To what extent are we trying, trying to remember or trying to erase a memory that may not be ours in the first place –\n \n\n11:43\tArchival Recording, bpNichol, November 1968:\t[Reading a poem] I wanted to forget you, so I tried to erase your name.\n \n\n11:49\tKatherine McLeod:\t–And yet having heard it, that memory can never be forgotten. The feeling of having heard it is still there.\n \n\n11:58\tShortCuts Theme Music:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n \n\n12:05\tKatherine McLeod:\tShortCuts is mixed and mastered by Judith Burr, hosted by Hannah McGregor and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Head to SpokenWeb.ca to find out more about the sounds in this minisode and to learn more about SpokenWeb and The SpokenWeb Podcast. Thanks for listening. 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Vancouver: Press Gang, 1996.\\n\\nMaracle, Lee.\\nMemory Serves: Oratories\\n. Ed. Smaro Kamboureli. NeWest Press, 2015.\\n\\n“radiofreerainforest 3 & 28 July and 7 August, 1988.”\\nGerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest Collection.\\nSFU Digitized Collections.\\nhttps://digital.lib.sfu.ca/radiofreerainforest-357/radiofreerainforest-3-28-july-and-7-august-1988\\n\\n“ShortCuts 2.9: Situating Sound.”\\nThe SpokenWeb Podcast\\n, 21 June 2020.\\nhttps://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/situating-sound/\\n\\nTaylor, Diana.\\nThe Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas\\n. Durham, N.C: Duke UP, 2003.\\n\\nWilson, Michelle. “Forced Migration.”\\nThe SpokenWeb Podcast\\n, 6 December 2021.\\nhttps://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/forced-migration/\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549809528832,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["As part two of ShortCuts 2.9 Situating Sound—and as one of the many remembrances of Stó:lō writer and activist Lee Maracle—this ShortCuts explores how the archive remembers and who these memories serve. The audio recording for this episode is a 1988 recording of Lee Maracle and Dionne Brand, recorded for broadcast on Gerry Gilbert’s radio program “radiofreerainforest” (Vancouver Coop Radio; SFU Digitized Collections). Building towards Maracle’s reading of the poem “Perseverance,” producer Katherine McLeod selects audio clips from this recording in which we can hear feminist placemaking in action. \n\n00:00\tShortCuts Theme:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n \n\n00:09\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series. We’ll share with you, especially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask, what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? An extension of the ShortCuts blog posts on spoken web blog, this series brings Katherine’s favourite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to SpokenWeb.ca for more. without further ado. [End Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini-stories about how literature sounds. [SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music: Instrumental Overlapped with Feminine Voice]\n \n\n01:17\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to ShortCuts. Last time on ShortCuts, we were listening to recordings that made us think about and feel the emotional weight of archives. We were thinking about how archival recordings produce memories that can almost stand in for the lived memory itself. How does the archive remember? Is the archive, the archive as in the colonial archive, or is the archive something more attuned to embodied practice? And that understanding very much resonates with the most recent episode of the SpokenWeb Podcast, “Forced Migration.” That episode asks how stories are passed along in the case of bison migration. Artist and researcher Michelle Wilson mines colonial archives in order to create alternative stories of the human relations with the bison of Turtle Island. What do we call the collection of these stories, an archive, a community, and who do these memories serve? That is the question that will take us into the sounds of this ShortCuts, who do these memories serve.\n \n\n02:34\tKatherine McLeod:\tAnd here I’m thinking about Stó:lō writer and activist Lee Maracle’s book Memory Serves. On November 11th, 2021 Lee Maracle passed away… And I heard the news after finishing up the last ShortCuts and thinking about archival afterlives. I listened to all the tributes pouring in for Maracle across various media outlets and media platforms. We’re still listening to those tributes and remembrances. Recordings of Maracle’s voice are in SpokenWeb audio collections. For example, if you recall the episode in season two of ShortCuts on Dionne Brand’s reading from 1988, you’ll recall that Lee Maracle had read with her that night. I had planned on a part two of that ShortCuts to listen to Maracle in that recording. And now is the time to listen. At the same time, like in the last episode, I encourage you to take care while listening…\n \n\n03:35\tAudio Recording, Lee Maracle, 1988 Reading:\tTomorrow there’s a celebration of South Africa Women’s Day. And I was asked almost a year ago now, I think to do a poem for the boycott the shipments of sulphur from Vancouver harbour to South Africa. And I’m gonna read that one first.\n \n\n03:59\tKatherine McLeod:\tIt is a reading that was broadcast on the radio program, radiofreerainforest. And that’s how we end up with this recording. That is the archive. But the experience of being there is archived in the sound in the cadence of voice, in the noise, in the background, in the laughter in knowing that the recording cannot remember it all. We won’t listen to the entire recording, but we will listen to enough clips that you get a sense of it. And if you’d like to return to it, you’ll know that it is there. The audio clips that we will hear are ones that convey the sound of the room, what it would’ve felt like to be there, how we can hear kinship, how we can hear the relation between bodies in the room. Like in this moment, when Maracle explains that she is going to read an epigram for Dionne Brand…\n \n\n04:56\tAudio Recording, Lee Maracle, 1988 Reading:\tThis is for Dionne. [Laughter] She wrote this book called Winter Epigrams. You should all buy it if you get a chance [Laughter], it’s a great book of poems. But as you know, about 95% of Canada in the winter is covered in snow. So I answered her epigrams about the cold in this fashion. At that time, I hadn’t met Dionne, but I was supposed to read with her and, it never came to pass [Laughter]. Tonight is the first— [inaudible comment from Brand] [Laughter from Brand and Maracle] — and I wouldn’t these, but [Inaudible] [Shared Laughter]… This one’s called “Flowers for Dionne.” I hope I get it right!\n \n\n05:46\tKatherine McLeod:\tIt feels as though we’re listening to a private moment that has found its way into a more formal archive. There are jokes about how they had planned to read together didn’t and now here they are — and that continues later, when in her reading Brand replies to Maracle with an unfinished epigram in response.\n \n\n06:08\tAudio Recording, Dionne Brand, 1988 Reading:\tLee read the epigram back to me in Montreal. And I was very honoured too, that she had written it back to me and I’ve been trying to write her back an epigram. We might make a book [Audience Laughter]. So I haven’t got very far with the epigram except to say: “Write me out of this epigram, Lee, you are so much water. You are too much water, too much rock, so much eagle. Write me out of this epigram, Lee. I am so much bush, so much ocean, so much rage…” And that’s just the beginning. [Laughter] It’s not finished. [Clapping] It’s supposed to go and like “write us out of this goddamn epigram.” [Audience Laughter]. I want to read a couple poems about South Africa.\n \n\n07:21\tKatherine McLeod:\tBrand starts her reading after Maracle with a poem for South Africa. And that is exactly how Maracle had started hers. I am taking all of these audio clips out of their contexts, out of their linear order in which they would’ve been heard in the reading, but, in doing so, I’m trying to bring to the forefront, the connections that are embedded within it and the conversation happening between poets in the reading itself. Knowing the exchange that unfolds between Brand and Maracle about the epigrams, it becomes even more meaningful to hear what precedes it. And this is why I’ve taken all of that out of context, to build up to hearing this poem, a poem that Maracle introduces by saying that she wrote it for herself. Let’s now listen to Lee Maracle reading “Perseverance”…\n \n\n08:16\tAudio Recording, Lee Maracle, 1988 Reading:\tI once said that poetry is never a self-portrait, you know, poets are famous for writing for so and so and for so and so and for so and so… Well, I was feeling very narcissistic one day, and I decided this was for me. It’s called “Perseverance.”\n \n\n08:34\tAudio Recording, Lee Maracle, 1988 Reading:\t[Reading poem] There’s a dandelion on the roadside in Toronto, it’s leaves a dishevelled mix of green and brown. A dandelion straggling and limping along. There’s a flower beside a concrete stump on Bay Street in Toronto, perpetually rebelling against spiked heels and blue surge suits. The monetary March passed by five o’clock Bay Street, deaf to the cries of this thin ageing lion’s sneer. Chicken, yellow flower. My leaves, my face, my skin. I feel like my skin is being ripped off of me. There is a flower in Toronto on the roadside. It takes jack hammers and brutish machines to rip the concrete from the sidewalks in Toronto to beautify the city of blue suede suits. But for this dandy lion, it takes, but a seed, a little acid rain, a whole lot of fight, and a black desire to limp along and scraggle, forward. There is a flower. [Audience Laughter]\n \n\n09:41\tAudio Recording, Lee Maracle, 1988 Reading:\tThis is for Dionne.\n \n\n09:42\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat poem ends with the words, “There is a flower.” We can hear that those words are almost covered by the response from the audience — and, well, no, they’re not covered. It’s more that they’re supported by the sound. The sound holds them up. And that’s the moment that Maracle says, “This is for Dionne.” Listening again, I rushed to check a published version of the poem in I Am Woman to see that it ends with “There is a flower” because it really sounds like she says, “Here is a flower.” On the page, it says “There is a flower,” but I listen to it again. And it does sound like “here.” And thinking about it more, I thought, well, how beautiful would it have been? If she had said, “Here is a flower,” because she had said that this poem is for herself. To say, “here is a flower” is like saying a version of: “Here I am.” And that would make even more sense with how her audience responds. It’s as though she’s reached out her arms while saying it, and as though we can hear the warmth of the smiles and nods around her saying, yes, here she is. Let’s listen to that ending again…\n \n\n10:52\tAudio Recording, Lee Maracle, 1988 Reading:\t“…black desire to limp along and scraggle, forward. There is a flower. [Audience Laughter] This is for Dionne. [Lee Laughs] She wrote this called book called Winter Epigrams. You should all buy it if you get a chance. It’s a great book…\n \n\n11:11\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat was Lee Maracle reading with Dionne Brand in 1988. The recording is part of the radiofreerainforest collection, which is part of SpokenWeb’s audio collections held at Simon Fraser University. If you are a SpokenWeb researcher with an audio clip for shortcuts, do get in touch at spokenwebpodcast@gmail.com. If you are listening and you were at one of the readings played here on ShortCuts, please do get in touch at the same email spokenwebpodcast@gmail.com. [Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Music]\n \n\n11:42\tKatherine McLeod:\tShortcuts is mixed and mastered by Judith Burr, hosted by Hannah McGregor, transcribed by Kelly Cubbon, and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening.\n \n"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9984","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 3.4, Sonic Passages, 17 January 2022, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/sonic-passages/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2022],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/db88c6e3-2a5c-41d6-a316-c3e74f9165c7/audio/aabfa4af-a82c-4737-b0b4-e3c8388c83f3/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-3-4-sonic-passages.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:11:18\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"10,928,423 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"Full Episode_Shortcuts 3.4\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/sonic-passages/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2022-01-17\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"AUDIO\\n\\nAudio in this episode is from a 1970 recording of Daphne Marlatt reading in Montreal at the Sir George Williams Poetry Series, and from a 2019 interview with Marlatt conducted by Karis Shearer and Megan Butchart and that aired on The SpokenWeb Podcast’s sister podcast, Soundbox Signals, and re-aired on The SpokenWeb Podcast. \\n\\nListen to the full recording of Daphne Marlatt reading in Montreal (1970): https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/daphne-marlatt-at-sgwu-1970/.\\n\\nListen to the previous episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast, “SoundBox Signals presents Performing the Archive”: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/soundbox-signals-presents-performing-the-archive/.\\n\\nListen to the previous ShortCuts on Marlatt, “Then and Now” mentioned in this episode: https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-then-and-now/.\\n\\nRESOURCES\\n\\n“Daphne Marlatt & Diane Wakoski: Performing the SpokenWeb Archive.” SpokenWeb. Concordia University, 21 November 2014,  https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/oral-literary-history/daphne-marlatt-diane-wakoski-performing-the-spokenweb-archive/.\\n\\nMarlatt, Daphne. “Afterword: Immediacies of Writing.” Rivering: The Poetry of Daphne Marlatt. Ed. Susan Knutson. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014. \\n\\n— “Bird of Passage.” Origin, vol. 3, no. 16, Cid Corman, Jan. 1970, pp. 1–68, https://jstor.org/stable/community.28042112.\\n\\nMcLeod, Katherine. “Daphne Marlatt reading ‘Lagoon’.” SPOKENWEBLOG, 28 November, 2019, https://spokenweb.ca/daphne-marlatt-reading-lagoon/.\\n\\nShearer, Karis. “Performing the Archive: Daphne Marlatt, leaf leaf/s, then and now.” The AMP Lab. UBC-Okanagan, 17 November 2019, https://amplab.ok.ubc.ca/index.php/2019/11/17/performing-the-archive-daphne-marlatt-leaf-leaf-s-then-and-now/.\\n\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549809528833,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This ShortCuts episode responds to poet Daphne Marlatt’s conversation with Karis Shearer and Megan Butchart in the recent SpokenWeb Podcast episode “SoundBox Signals presents Performing the Archive.” By listening to audio from Marlatt’s previous archival performances, ShortCuts producer Katherine McLeod considers how we remember feelings attached to reading a poem out loud. What does it feel like to hear a recording of your own voice? Are you reminded of how you were feeling while speaking, and can the archive ever hold the memory of those feelings?\n\n*\n\n“Sometimes, unknowingly, one writes a few lines that continue to\nreverberate as some kind of pointer for future years of writing.”\n— Daphne Marlatt, “Afterword” (Rivering)\n\n00:09\tShortCuts Theme:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n \n\n00:09\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? An extension of the ShortCuts blog posts on Spoken Web blog, this series brings Katherine’s favourite audio clips each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast feed. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to SpokenWeb.ca for more. without further ado. [End Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini-stories about how literature sounds. [SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music: Instrumental Overlapped with Feminine Voice]\n \n\n01:17\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts. In this ShortCuts, our listening will be inspired by the previous full episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast. That means we’ll be drawing our inspiration from Daphne Marlatt’s conversation with Karis Shearer and Megan Butchart in the recent episode “SoundBox Signals presents Performing the Archive.” They talk with Marlatt about poetry readings and about her performance with the archive in a poetry reading that had taken place the night before the interview — in 2019. In that reading, Marlatt had read alongside recordings of her past self — a recording from 1969.\n \n\n02:02\tKatherine McLeod:\tThis ShortCuts is inspired by the question of what it feels like to hear a recording of your past self – and asks: how can an archive contain traces of what the self – the body – behind the voice was feeling? In the case of Marlatt, she is a poet who has graciously accepted the invitation by SpokenWeb to listen to recordings of her past self and past voice more than once. I was there in the audience at a previous one. That was a reading that Marlatt gave in 2014 in Montreal. She read along with a recording of her reading in Montreal in 1970. What strikes me in listening back to that 1970 recording after hearing Marlatt’s conversation with Shearer and Butchart on the podcast is the extent to which a recording captures a person in a moment in time in their body. I’m thinking here of the difference between what she thought her voice sounded like in that recording and what she could remember feeling. I had listened to that 1970 recording for a previous ShortCuts with my listening attuned to place — check the show notes for Then and Now — but this time I was listening to that 1970 recording with my attention attuned to where the body was present in this recording. I noticed how she introduces the poem “Bird of Passage.” What she says before reading “Bird of Passage” is quite short but it contains so much, both said and unsaid.\n \n\n03:41\tKatherine McLeod:\tShe says, this is a poem that I wrote.\n \n\n03:44\tAudio recording, Daphne Marlatt, 1970:\tThis is a poem that I wrote when I was about… oh I don’t know, seven or eight months pregnant… [Pause] …Bird of Passage. I wrote it in Vancouver… spring time again…. Bird of Passage.\n \n\n04:03\tKatherine McLeod:\tHere, was Marlatt in 1970 saying that she had written this poem ‘Bird of Passage’ while she was pregnant. That is significant in and of itself when thinking of the body but now I was hearing it with the full resonance of her recent conversation with Shearer and Buchart from the podcast and what Marlatt says when the date of the recording, July 1969, is mentioned…\n \n\n04:30\tAudio Recording, Daphne Marlatt, “SoundBox Signals presents Performing the Archive”, 2019:\tInteresting that date, because I had given birth to my son at the beginning of May. So, I was a young mother, my body had gone through a major experience. That was not the experience that I’d had when I wrote those poems. What was interesting to me hearing last night at the reading – there was so much – my voice was so much more present in those poems than I had remembered my voice being, and I think it’s because of the giving birth experience…\n \n\n05:09\tKatherine McLeod:\tHer comment is about a memory of how the body had felt when she was writing those poems. And her comment is also about how she remembers feeling in her body when she was reading those poems out loud. I wonder, then, how would it have felt to read “Bird of Passage” out loud to an audience in 1970. Only she will know that. The archive cannot answer that question. But what we can hear in the archive is the sound of the poem and how it resonates now in relation to Marlatt’s writing. Listen to the sound of passage vibrating in this poem, “Bird of Passage,” not only in the title but in phrases like this one:\n \n\n05:56\tAudio recording, Daphne Marlatt, 1970:\t[Reading “Bird of Passage”] “…eave swallows cliff, passerine, which I thought meant passing as passenger sails, through an isthmus, time does not constrict…”\n \n\n06:05\tKatherine McLeod:\tIt is as though the poem is moving towards what passage comes to mean in Marlatt’s poems — passage, passing, a moving towards, language as the medium of passage, a passage between…\n \n\n06:19\tAudio recording, Daphne Marlatt, 1970:\tI cannot grasp your sound, breath, stone, you turn dumb, and will not speak, of what sticks at, feathers, uneasy nest, unease, a restlessness, tonight, drips in, passing in return, perhaps light airs, we begin again…\n \n\n06:43\tKatherine McLeod:\tThat is how she ends the poem, and we’re about to listen to it from the beginning in its entirety together, but I’ve played these clips from it in advance to attune ourselves to the poem. It is a poem that one could pass over while listening to the reading, but her brief introductory words made it stand out especially because I was listening with the question of: how can we hear feelings of embodiment in the recording of this reading? Recently, in the afterward to Rivering, Marlatt has written this observation — quote: “Sometimes, unknowingly, one writes a few lines that continue to reverberate as some kind of pointer for future years of writing.” Here is Marlatt reading “Bird of Passage” in 1970. I invite you to hear the resonances of moving forward, the sound of her voice as passage, surging towards her future poems, her “future years of writing” …\n \n\n07:50\tAudio recording, Daphne Marlatt, 1970:\tThis is a poem that I wrote when I was about – I don’t know –seven or eight months pregnant. “Bird of Passage” I wrote it in Vancouver, springtime again. Bird of Passage. [Reading poem, transcribed as heard – see Show Notes for a link to the poem as published.] Thaw begins tonight, Eaves drip incessant strain rings, wind bell spring brought forward out of time. This bird, dive bird, nestle, why stop nested under the eave of flesh or strong wet bird’s wings. Turned as I am against your anonymous hip, in sleep some cliff must be negotiated. Swallow. Eave swallows cliff passerine, which I thought meant passing as passenger sails through an isthmus, time does not constrict. Helpless, constriction in my throat seeing the picture of oil slick bird, will die. Fixed, its feathers mark coming out of yoke, this black stuff. Fix of its own birth. So a month’s accumulation of tears into icicles, vesicles, leaves, roots. Incessant release can be nothing more than alone, urine past, warm, squat by the window’s cold. Only to lie, quote, alone. Not ceasing its skim in serous medium light as air to us gravity-bound. Head over heels or wing bones supplied to test its limit extent, passage, passing, passenger. Temporary nest high in the air. Hirundinidae, hirondelle in graceful flight and regular migration. Fathered by a bird too sought definition for its passage, bird of sea, bird of passage or, quote, a rolling stone. Jumps in the  womb for joy. A recognition, cognition, knowing whence sound came a rhythm per-vades rocking waves under the face of his, fight to be over the din. We are all born in risk, mute, cliff. I cannot grasp your sound, breath, stone. You turn dumb and will not speak of what sticks at feathering. An uneasy nest, unease, a restless. Tonight, drips in passing in return, perhaps light airs. We begin, again.\n \n\n10:57\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Song] ShortCuts is mixed and mastered by Judith Burr, hosted by Hannah McGregor, transcribed by Kelly Cubbon, and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Check SpokenWeb.ca to find out more about the sounds of these recordings. Thank you for listening. [End Music: ShortCuts Theme Song]\n "],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9985","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 3.5, The Voice That Is The Poem, ft. Kaie Kellough, 21 February 2022, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/the-voice-that-is-the-poem-ft-kaie-kellough/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2022],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/84e938cc-2b23-4f14-b878-f316ed90368b/audio/a1afdd87-27b6-41a9-b7c9-3b8355079a60/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-3-5.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:20:06\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"19,369,108 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"ShortCuts 3.5\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/the-voice-that-is-the-poem-ft-kaie-kellough/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2022-02-21\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Archival audio in this episode is excerpted from a recording of The Words and Music Show on November 20, 2016 (Casa del Popolo, Montreal). \\n\\nThe performers that night were Eve Nixen, Kaie Kellough, Tawhida Tanya Evanson’s Zenship [Tawhaida Tanya Evanson (voice); Mark Haynes (bass); Ziya Tabassian (percussion); Caulder Nash (keyboards), with guest performance by Nina Segalowitz (Inuit throat singing)], Paul Dutton, and pianist Stefan Christoff.\\n\\nSHOW NOTES\\n\\nKellough, Kaie.\\nMagnetic Equator\\n. McClelland and Stewart, 2020. \\n\\n—“Rough Craft: Notes on the creation of the audio / visual / textual work Small Stones.”\\nSPOKENWEBLOG,\\n22 May, 2021,\\nhttps://spokenweb.ca/rough-craft-notes-on-the-creation-of-the-audio-visual-textual-work-small-stones/\\n.\\n\\n“The Show Goes On.” Producer Jason Camlot.\\nThe SpokenWeb Podcast\\n, 7 Feb 2022.\\nhttps://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/the-show-goes-on-words-and-music-in-a-pandemic/\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549810577408,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["On ShortCuts this month, producer Katherine McLeod talks with poet, novelist, and sound performer Kaie Kellough about a memorable recording from The Words & Music Show.  \n\nWhat are we listening to? Kellough unpacks what we are listening to — which turns out to be a highly technical, performative, and polyphonic sonic object, along with it being an early version of a passage from his Griffin Prize-winning book of poetry,\nMagnetic Equator\n. \n\nListen to this ShortCuts for the story behind one archival recording, and what this story reveals about how we remember the feelings infused within live performance. \n\n00:09\tShortCuts Theme Music:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n \n\n00:09\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) you can join me, Hannah McGregor, and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod, for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? ShortCuts is an extension of the ShortCuts blog posts on SpokenWeb blog [Sound Effect: Wind Chime]. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. If you’re a researcher with the SpokenWeb Project, think about joining Katherine on ShortCuts to discuss an archival clip that has impacted your work. Especially if you are a student who has been digitizing and cataloguing recordings and there is a sound that stands out to you after all those hours of listening — let Katherine know! Pitch Katherine your audio by emailing spokenwebpodcast@gmail.com. [End Music: ShortCuts Theme Music] Now, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts: mini stories about how literature sounds. [SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music: Instrumental Overlapped with Feminine Voice]\n \n\n01:29\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to ShortCuts, where we listen closely and carefully to a shortcut [Sound Effect: Scissors] from SpokenWeb’s audio collections. On this episode, we’ll be listening to an audio clip from a performance by Griffin poetry prize-winning poet, Kaie Kellough. It’s a recording of him reading at The Words & Music Show in Montreal, back in November, 2016. You may even remember this clip. It was featured previously on ShortCuts. It’s a memorable recording in which Kellough’s introduction to a poem becomes the poem. I thought I’d return to this clip, partly as a response to the most recent full episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast — and do check that out if you haven’t already — and also because I’ve always wanted to ask Kellough about that performance. What are we listening to? And what does it feel like for him to listen to that recording? So let’s travel back in time to the Words & Music Show at Casa Del Popolo in 2016. Kaie Kellough is on stage and he is thanking host Ian Ferrier for the introduction and he’s about to start his set. We’ll hear a recording of that first. And then we’ll jump into my recent conversation on Zoom with Kaie Kellough. We started that conversation by listening to the same recording. Or, as I said to him, I’ll play this very short clip and we’ll listen to it together…\n \n\n02:59\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\tWe we’ll play the very short clip and we can listen to it together.\n \n\n03:02\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tSounds good.\n \n\n03:03\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\tAnd so let me just share this.\n \n\n03:06\tAudio Recording, Kaie Kellough, Words & Music Show, 2016:\tHello, thanks Ian, for that introduction. And… thanks to all of the other artists tonight… It’s been a very nice night. I’mmmmm going to present something to you, for you, that is… somewhat narrative, I guess… but it isn’t related to my novel. It’s some other narratives and… the narratives are related to adolescence… which is a peculiar time in life…. and I think that they’re relevant nowadays because [Recorded speech begins overlapping, legible words will appear in square brackets] they’re related to adolescence in a particular place in time…in Alberta behind in the [I want to forget] 1980s [high school fever forever] in the moment of [black hair, teens from the] heavy evangelical who drank themselves to activity extreme conservatism [trying to prove themselves that they exist] that they, some of the challenge is that arise growing up [I want to forget my stupid conviction] and trying to live oneself in a climate like that, which seems to be a climate that had to reemerging in spite of that [amber alcohol, all of the DNA] all of the [seeped down centuries of slavery] all of the appearances to the contrary that had appeared [in a far flung] in the past [suburb of empire]. The idea [that slum above] born yesterday was finished [or that born yesterday] was finished [or a bubble] or [a burden was seat and, and done suddenly a wave [a froth that was archived by teenage brains] a wave of [autobiography of conservatism] of conservatism has, has has [crashed] crashed [Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, the jaws of life rend and pry it open] suddenly a wa— [like a tuna can] suddenly a [everybody is unconscious] suddenly a wave [is bleeding] has crashed…\n \n\n05:22\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\tThat was recorded at The Words and Music Show back in 2016. And I’m wondering, what, what are we listening to there? What are we hearing?\n \n\n05:34\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tWow. 2016! I didn’t realize it was that long ago. Actually, what you’re listening to is a passage from the manuscript of Magnetic Equator. I mean, that was a very, very, very early iteration of that. And it was – one of the themes that became a sort of major thread in the book, which was writing about adolescence in Western Canada in the 80s and 90s. But what I was trying to do in the performance was – you know, in live vocal performance one of the things that is a huge concern is that you only have one voice at a time, right. So how do you multiply that? How do you get to have maybe two voices or three voices at a time, or half a voice? How does that work? So you can multiply or divide voice. And that instantly makes, I think, the sonic field and the vocal field a little bit richer. And then if you can overlap them or layer them, or have them speak across one another — and sometimes sync-up and sometimes diverge — then it becomes not just multiple voices but it becomes an interplay among multiple voices, a sort of directed movement. So one problem was, how do you get around having just one voice in performance? And then what happens when you have multiple voices? What do you do with them? Then another other concern is that, sometimes in live oral performance, the poet, or the presenter plays these dual roles and sort of toggles between them. There’s the role of the poet — the, how can I put this? The MC, the master of ceremonies where you, you say, “okay, so now this next poem that I’m going to present is about”….and, and it’s you, right? The human being. You crack a couple of jokes, you present the poem, or you say something important about it, and then you present the poem. But when you read the poem, you shift into another persona. That’s the performer. That kind of movement back and forth — I’ve always liked to kind of try to subvert that and not to emphasize that too much, or find ways of blending it. So the introduction becomes the poem, or the introduction, in this case, winds up entering into dialogue with the poem. The voice that was the poem was recorded into a Zoom recorder. And then that Zoom was — so I had a bunch of electronics in front of me at the time. So there’s a visual part of the performance that can’t be seen in that intro clip.\n \n\n08:15\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tAnd so it’s sort of the playing up the part of sort of the befuddled button, electronic button tweaker, right? Trying to say something, meanwhile, being distracted by the machine and your voice gets overtaken by the machine, but also –so there’s my voice going through a clean microphone. And then there’s a second voice which been recorded into a Zoom and that’s being played through — actually, no, there are three voices. So there’s my voice, introducing the poem. There’s a second voice that’s going through a mixer and out to the house, and that’s a recorded voice. And then there’s a third recorded voice that’s going back into an effects pedal and then out. So there can always – from the recording there can always be a clean channel and a channel that is run through effects. And I was running it through this really the interesting analog delay pedal that doesn’t sound like your usual delay, but it sort of breaks up and fragments the source sound.[Recorded audio of fragmented sound effect plays in the background] So eventually the voice started to – it would sound like tape delay, like scribing and fragmenting and breaking. [Fragmented Voice: “Wandering out of time / This ship built by oil money / this fort for raw tobacco]\n \n\n09:42\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tSo potentially the voice would start to sound like tape delay, like squiggling and fragmenting and breaking up. But yeah, so there could potentially be three voices, mine, the clean recorded, and the broken.\n \n\n09:48\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\tAnd I guess the fact that Ian Ferrier recorded every Words and Music Show, then we have this version, all three voices are captured in Ian’s recording in an interesting way that then –.\n \n\n10:03\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tYes.\n \n\n10:03\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\t– it’s like we have one iteration of it, but it would never have been performed the same way twice.\n \n\n10:10\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tThere was another thing — I remember this performance and what I was thinking about was — was also having the introduction to the poem, be sort of halting and… failing to progress fluidly. I wanted to have the work come up under that. So to give the impression that I didn’t know exactly what I might be doing and then have the poem take over in a moment of uncertainty. But yeah, thanks to Ian for recording that stuff, because it was an experiment. I’d been playing with it at home and we decided — I got the chance to experiment— I think that might have been a bill that Paul Dutton was on too.\n \n\n10:52\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\tTo imagine then hearing that alongside one of Paul Dutton’s performances too. That adds even more. I think too thinking about when – what you talked about the, almost like the hesitant introduction, it felt like that worked so well too with the poem, because it felt like of thinking back —ok back to adolescence, and hesitating kind of feeling like do I wanna go back or do, and so it sort of felt like that hesitancy was also connected to a bit of the emotional distance from that time too, and really, really hearing that process. It really, yeah – it feels like we’re listening to a process unfolding in the way that the introduction moves into the poem. It feels like a very important part of the process of how the poem evolved eventually to become what it is on the page.\n \n\n11:47\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tYeah. No, the poem changed a lot between that iteration into 2016, and what was later, what was the edited version that was wound up being published. The one that was performed in 2016 — I can definitely say that the poem had probably been written within weeks of that performance. I was trying to — I was trying to, trying to play with the idea that…the sense that maybe the person who was presenting the poems was not fully competent. Their confidence was wavering. And those are not things that you’re supposed to perform, right. Once you get up in the moment of performance, it’s supposed to be pure expertise and excellence. And difficulty, hesitancy — those things are not supposed to be there. Those are supposed to be –you’re supposed to gloss those over with a sense of know-how and knowing what to do in the moment. And so how do you approach a performance and get around the need for constant expertise throughout? Because those other experiences are part of the experience of performing. Even if you don’t perform them, you feel them while you’re performing. You feel hesitant, your brain is racing. You’re not sure what to say next. You don’t necessarily always feel totally capable when you go up there to perform. So how do you emphasize that in a way that works within the context of the performance?\n \n\n13:35\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\tHearing this now in the archive, how does this recording sit for you in time?\n \n\n13:40\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tYeah, it’s interesting because it does sit – I mean, it does sit as something that is — it’s like a board tap from a live event. So there’s a raw quality to it. If this were made in a studio, it would’ve been a different piece because it would’ve been created for audio. Right. It would’ve been created exclusively as an audio piece and there would’ve been really limited emphasis on the visual aspect of performance and that communication and with an audience. It would’ve been elaborate in a different way as a sonic object. So, I mean, that does cross my mind, and that’s not necessarily a negative thing. What I mean by that is that just kind of establishes the further context for what it was.\n \n\n14:29\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tAnd that was one of the nice things about, about Wired on Words. If you wanted, you could accept Ian’s invitation to go to the show and you could repeat the same work that you repeated two months before that. And three months before that and six months before that. I accepted a lot of Ian’s invitations, and I always tried to take them as opportunities to attempt something slightly different. And so, I might have repeated myself sometimes, but I was really, really trying to move away from that. And that helped me because there was a thought that I could consistently develop new work and it didn’t have to be perfect and flawless to go out to be presented to the public, but it could be developed and developing towards something, and, in the moment of performance, if I could communicate that well enough people would grasp that. That was also — it also felt like it was the context of the show. There was a looseness to it that kind of allowed for that. It was –I mean, it was a show. So you were presenting somewhat finished works to the public, but the thing about it was that there’s something very casual about it too.\n \n\n15:59\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\tI feel that The Words and Music Show still feels that way, and it’s amazing to continue having that spirit through — such a long — through over 20 years of having the show.\n \n\n16:11\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tYeah, especially thinking about it now. I mean we’re in the fourth or fifth wave the pandemic and everything shut down again. The literary world has, and the world of literature and performance has kind of migrated online, with varying degrees of success. I don’t think — like the world of performance — I mean, it’s difficult to feel any inspiration toward performance when you’re sitting in your living room — right? [Laugher] It just seems so ridiculous. And, so to think back on the freedom to just roll out to a venue close by home and to be able to perform and to benefit from what you were talking about earlier about — I mean, that’s what we don’t benefit from with online events, the being able to mill about and talk with people after the event. Like when with an online event, you’re there for the event.\n \n\n17:14\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\tYeah.\n \n\n17:15\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tAnd there may be some back and forth in the comments or in the chat, but generally you’re there for the event and with live events, you were partly there for the event, but then there was all of the other stuff that went on in between. In between, in between performances, in between sets, like if I would bring a bunch of gear there, like pedals and synths and stuff like that, other musicians would come up on stage and we would chat about the equipment and about the gear. And, “Oh, what can this panel in your synth do? How did you use this pedal? Oh, I have one that does this” And so on. And so there would also be some casual, impromptu learning that would take place. Someone might ask you if you’ve ever used one of your pieces of equipment in such and such a way, and might show you how to do something with it. So that possibility too was really very much a part of those, those. Or, how did you get that sound, you know? And then you could share information about that. And that learning was a big part of those events too\n \n\n18:22\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\tHmm. Yeah, we’re definitely missing it. [Sigh] Well, I think that’s a beautiful note to end on. I want to thank you. Thank you so much, Kaie, for joining me and talking about this clip from Words and Music Show and what we’re listening to.\n \n\n18:40\tKaie Kellough, Zoom recording:\tOh, thanks. Thanks for having me. And thanks for asking me and reminding me of the clip. You asked me [Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Music] what it was like, what I thought about when hearing it and it’s strange to hear that kind of reflection of yourself and to – I didn’t realize it was as far back as 2016, because it feels a lot sooner. I remember what I was thinking about. I remember what my poetry, my poetic preoccupations were at the time. I remember how far that poem came because it was young and sentimental when I wrote it, and then it was not like that by the time it was published. It took on a different sort of personality by the time it was published. But yeah, I remember everything that I was thinking about. I remember how excited I was about it. Yeah. It’s just a — so thank you.\n \n\n19:34\tKatherine McLeod, Zoom recording:\tThank you so much.\n \n\n19:39\tKatherine McLeod:\tYou’ve been listening to ShortCuts. My guest this month was poet Kaie Kellough. ShortCuts is mixed and mastered by Judith Burr, hosted by Hannah McGregor, transcribed by Kelly Cubbon, and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening. [End Music: ShortCuts Theme Music]"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9986","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 3.6, Listening Communities: The Introductions of Douglas Barbour, 21 March 2022, O’Driscoll"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/listening-communities-the-introductions-of-douglas-barbour/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Michael O’Driscoll"],"creator_names_search":["Michael O’Driscoll"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"name\":\"Michael O’Driscoll\",\"dates\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2022],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/92fcd7b7-f420-4290-92bb-dc203c24e20e/audio/a0916f80-9412-430b-86c4-bdf060a54182/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts3-6-listeningcommunities.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:22:28\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"21,576,865 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"ShortCuts3.6_ListeningCommunities\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/listening-communities-the-introductions-of-douglas-barbour/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2022-03-21\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/10238561\",\"venue\":\"University of Alberta\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"11121 Saskatchewan Drive NW, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E5\",\"latitude\":\"53.52682\",\"longitude\":\"-113.5244937350756\"}]"],"Address":["11121 Saskatchewan Drive NW, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E5"],"Venue":["University of Alberta"],"City":["Edmonton, Alberta"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"AUDIO\\n\\nAudio played in this ShortCuts is excerpted from the SpokenWeb’s audio collections held by the University of Alberta. The audio is currently being catalogued by SpokenWeb researchers. \\n\\nAudio of Douglas Barbour reading “The Gone Tune” is from the cassette tape recording of The Bards of March (15 March 1986). \\n\\nAudio of Douglas Barbour’s introductions are selected from readings recorded in 1977-1981. The poets introduced are, in order of audio appearance: Tom Wayman, Phyllis Webb, Fred Wah, Maxine Gadd, George Bowering, Roy Kiyooka, Penn Kemp, Leona Gom, John Newlove, Sheila Watson, Robert Kroetsch, and bpNichol.\\n\\nRESOURCES\\n\\nNeWest Press: IN MEMORIAM: DOUGLAS BARBOUR (1940-2021),\\nhttps://newestpress.com/news/in-memoriam-douglas-barbour-1940-2021\\n\\nDouglas Barbour (March 21, 1940 – September 25, 2021),\\nhttps://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2021/09/douglas-barbour-march-21-1940-september.html\\n\\n“\\nSounds of Trance Formation: An Interview with Penn Kemp.\\n” Produced by Nick Beauchesne & Penn Kemp for\\nThe SpokenWeb Podcast\\nand starts with a clip from the\\nTrance Form\\nreading hosted by Douglas Barbour at the University of Alberta (1977).\\n\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549812674560,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["Our guest-producer this month, Michael O’Driscoll, invites us to listen to the introductions of the late Douglas Barbour\n(March 21, 1940 – Sept 25, 2021)\nfrom readings held at the University of Alberta. What are we listening to when we hear introductory remarks from past readings spliced together? By asking us to listen to remember, this episode remembers Barbour in his element —in sonic performance — and what we hear in the selected recordings is a combination both of poetic sound and sounds of deep care as he welcomes each writer to the microphone. \n\n00:09\tShortCuts Theme Music\t[Piano Overlaid with Distorted Beat]\n \n\n00:09\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) you can join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? ShortCuts is an extension of the ShortCuts blog posts on Spoken Web blog, so if you love what you hear be sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. If you’re a researcher with the Spoken Web Project, think about joining Katherine on shortcuts to discuss an archival clip that has impacted your work. Especially if you’re a student who has been digitizing and cataloging recordings, and there’s a sound that stands out to you after all those hours of listening, let Katherine know! Pitch Katherine, your audio by emailing SpokenWebPodcast@gmail.com. Now here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini-stories about how literature sounds. [SpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music: Instrumental Overlapped with Feminine Voice]\n \n\n01:28\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome back to ShortCuts where we take a deep dive into the archives through a short ‘cut’ [Sound Effect: Scissor Clip] or ‘cuts’ [Sound Effect: Scissor Clip x2] from the sounds of the SpokenWeb audio collections. This month, we have a guest producer, Michael O’Driscoll. He’ll be taking us on a sonic journey into recordings that are part of SpokenWeb’s collections held by the University of Alberta. So I’ll keep my own introduction brief here, but I do want to share the story of how this episode came about because it really does shape what you will hear. Throughout this third season of ShortCuts, I’ve been asking: How does the archive remember? Back in the November episode (and do listen back to it afterwards as it really is a place where many of the questions asked in this episode began) I had just finished making that episode and I was so heartbroken as many of us were to hear the news that writers Phyllis Webb and Lee Maracle had passed away. I happened to be in a SpokenWeb meeting with Michael O’Driscoll the following week and we started talking about what it means to listen to archives as a kind of communal remembrance — for Michael, the writer on his mind was the late Douglas Barbour. And after that meeting, we decided to talk more about ShortCuts as one of many places to explore a kind of listening as remembrance. By the time this episode was made we started to call this “listening to remember.” So here we are now in March 2022 and Michael has created an episode which is both a celebration of the multi-faceted sounds of Barbour’s poetry, and a reflection upon what community and care can sound like in the archives. Let’s listen together to “Listening Communities: The Introductions of Douglas Barbour”.\n \n\n03:33\tMichael O’Driscoll:\t[Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Music] Hello, I’m Michael O’Driscoll, and in this ShortCuts episode we’re going to explore a most under-rated audio-textual genre: the introduction to a literary reading. And to do that we’re going to jump into the University of Alberta’s SpokenWeb collection, and listen in on a master of the genre: poet, professor, critic, and publisher Douglas Barbour. [End Music” ShortCuts Theme Music] If you’re familiar with Doug’s creative work, then you probably know him as one of Canada’s great sound poets…\n \n\n04:08\tArchival Recording, Douglas Barbour, The Bards of March, 1986:\tThis is called “That Gone Tune” and it began when I was at the well known and noted Yardbird suite listening to the Dave Holland Quintet. “That Gone Tune”. [Opening clip of Barbour performing the sound poem “That Gone Tune,” starting with nonlinguistic vocalizations ranging in loudness and then settling into utterances that are mostly vowel-sounds.]\n \n\n05:28\tMichael O’Driscoll:\tThat’s Doug performing in 1986 at Edmonton’s Jubilee Auditorium at The Bards of March event, a celebration of NeWest Press. I first heard Doug’s sound poetry one year earlier at the Bookshop Café in Guelph, Ontario. It was, without exaggeration, life changing—as a young undergraduate student, I’d never witnessed anything like it. Over ten minutes time, in exacting, breathtaking, and sometimes humorous detail, Doug performed the words “full” and “moon” by carefully articulating, extending, and distorting the consonants and vowels of each word—teasing out and making so strange a motif that otherwise, so often, has been the subject of much more conventional lyric poetry. Sadly, we don’t have a copy of Doug performing “Full Moon,” but what we do have in the University of Alberta’s SpokenWeb collection are many, many instances of Doug introducing his visiting guests to a local audience. And that’s where I’d like us to pause briefly today.\n \n\n06:42\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Tom Wayman at the University of Alberta, approximately 1978:\tIndeed, a pleasure to introduce Tom Wayman to you today. He is our writer in residence this year and a great fellow to have around. I can tell you, I’ve been enjoying talking to him and listening to him for the past few months and look forward to that in the future. Today, I’m afraid he’s gonna hack and cough his way through a fairly short reading since he’s come down with a very bad cold in the last couple weeks. But, as various of his titles indicate he is the person who likes to communicate to live audiences, Money and Rain, a title I love, Tom Wayman Live is one of his books and always enjoyed him when I listen to him. I hope you will too today, Tom Wayman. [Audience Applause]\n \n\n07:25\tMichael O’Driscoll:\tI eventually came to know Doug when I joined him as a faculty member at the University of Alberta in 1997. Doug, who quickly became a friend, was passionate about many things: he was an inveterate jazz enthusiast, and he was an avid reader and critic of science fiction and fantasy in addition to being astonishingly expert on all things poetic. He was a founding member and President of NeWest Press; he was, along with Stephen Scobie, half of the Re: Sounding performance duo that performed around the world, and he was, at heart, a generous teacher and mentor. I can’t possibly capture his dynamic character in the space of this short account, so I want to focus on one thing: Doug’s cultivation of community. When Doug passed away last September at the age of 81, his life partner Sharon Barbour heard an outpouring of grief and support and memory from hundreds of friends, writers, artists, collaborators, and students from quite literally around the world. So many of us were compelled to express our deep admiration and gratitude for this man with whom we each felt connected. This was, in part, because Doug worked relentlessly to gather together a community of listeners—through collaborative writing and creation—such as the “Continuations” series he wrote with poet Sheila Murphy—by generously sharing and circulating the work of others, in his passionate commitment to teaching and learning, in supporting and nurturing artists near and far, and by opening up their home to visiting writers here in Edmonton. If you search “Barbour” in the University of Alberta’s SpokenWeb collection of literary sound recordings, Doug’s name comes up a couple of dozen times. That’s because year in and year out, there was Doug, pushing the “record” button on a reel to reel or cassette tape recorder, and introducing the authors under his care. Many of my other colleagues shared in the organizing and hospitality that went into building not only UAlberta’s annual reading series, but also what is now the oldest, continuous Writer in Residence program in the country. But as custodians of literary audio, the SpokenWeb collective owes Doug a particular debt of gratitude for helping to capture so many of these moments in creative time. And perhaps nothing better represents Doug’s spirit of hospitality and community building than his introductions to those guests. And that provides us with a unique opportunity to listen to community in the making. Here’s what that sounded like, for Doug.\n \n\n10:22\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Phyllis Webb at the University of Alberta, January 29, 1981:\t[Collage of intros and background audio, sometimes inaudible and ranging in sound quality.] Well, it’s my pleasure to welcome you to the first of what I hope will be five readings this term. We haven’t heard from everybody yet, but the next there’ll be two in February and two in March. I have had the pleasure of introducing Phyllis Webb to audiences at U of A before, but my pleasure is really great this time, since she is also our writer in residence this year, something of which I’m very proud. Also for the first time at least here, she’ll be reading, not only from the manuscript for her new book, but from the new book itself, Wilson’s Bowl, which has just been published by Coach House. Alas quick boning around the book store has revealed that it had not yet come in, but it will soon be available in stores in Edmonton. And it’s an incredibly good book indeed. Already available in a very fine book is her selected poems, which is in the bookstore, hither and yawn. Anybody who’s read the journal recently will know I think very highly of Phyllis Webb so I’ll say nothing more than: Phyllis Webb. [Audience Applause].\n \n\n11:26\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Fred Wah at the University of Alberta, March 8, 1979:\t[Tape Click] I’s a real pleasure for me to introduce Fred Wah today, he’s a poet I’ve been reading for a number of years. I actually did read his first work in New Wave Canada in 1966 and although I never did find a copy of lardo or a mountain, which were his first books and are probably very rare by now, I have managed to get hold of his later books published in Canada, Trees, among which is a kind of selected poems from 60s and an amazingly beautiful book from Town Books, pictograms from the interior of BC, which is both very fine poems and a beautiful example of book making, I think. Fred is now working on a book which bpNichol said is easy enough for him to say, but very difficult for people like me and you Doug, because it’s very hard to breathe Nichol or Barbara out that easily, but breathing my name with a sigh is very easy when your name is Fred WAH! So, I look forward to hearing from that book as well as some of his other work today and with no further ado I’ll let Fred Wah read. [Audience Applause]\n \n\n12:39\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Maxine Gadd at the University of Alberta, February 16, 1979:\t[Inaudible Sounds] There’s somebody from Vancouver, but Maxine has been putting up very well with frozen cars and everything this morning. She’s published only three books, but she’s been writing for a long time. And as you can see here written a great deal. She doesn’t like to be published. And it seems from what she said to me this morning that the reason two of those books were published… [Recording Drops Out] … grabs some manuscript and ran with it as fast as he could to his blewointment press, uh, those books. However, are guns of the west, the book of Practical Knowledge and how do you pronounce it? Hochelaga?\n \n\n13:07\tArchival Recording Maxine Gadd at the University of Alberta, February 16, 1979:\tHochelaga. Yeah, I published Practical Knowledge myself.\n \n\n13:09\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Maxine Gadd at the University of Alberta, February 16, 1979:\tAnd, Westerns was published in 1975, a collection of those three books. I’m looking really forward to this reading and I hope you are too, Maxine Gadd.\n \n\n13:18\tArchival Recording Maxine Gadd at the University of Alberta, February 16, 1979:\tThanks.\n \n\n13:18\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing George Bowering at the University of Alberta, February 12, 1980:\tI have George Bowering here today to read to us. He is recently published another [inaudible] but I tend to think of him as the author of A Short Sad Book, Allophanes, and casting backwards a long distance, Touch, and many other works. George was once poet, but now he says he calls himself simply a writer. And he’s a very good writer. I’m glad to have him here. [Audience Applause].\n \n\n13:43\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Roy Kiyooka at the University of Alberta, February 11, 1977:\t…Stood among what I thought were the extraordinarily evocative photographs of his stone gloves and gave a reading at the University of Alberta. He hasn’t been back since, since that time, the book Stone Gloves has been published and last year Talon Books brought out a huge monumental transcanada letters, a book, which is delightful, engaging, and all the things that Roy Kiyooka is, which means multiplex and full of many, many wonders. It is my pleasure to introduce Roy Kiyooka to you today. [Audience Applause]\n \n\n14:15\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour, from Penny Chalmers (Penn Kemp) at the University of Alberta, February 18, 1977:\tThey’ll be right up to your feet but that won’t be too bad.\n \n\n14:18\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Penny Chalmers (Penn Kemp) at the University of Alberta, February 18, 1977:\t…Penny is the author of Most Recently Transformed, which is a marvelous looking book, as well as a very, very fine book…\n \n\n14:27\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Leona Gom at the University of Alberta, February 21, 1980:\t[Audience Chatter] …still a bit of… Not much [Audience Laughter]. We’re happy to welcome Leona Gom. [Audience Applause]\n \n\n14:36\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour, from John Newlove at the University of Alberta, March 19, 1981:\t[Audience Chatter] …there’s your friend. There’s a little bit of room if you wanna sit on the floor here!\n \n\n14:40\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing John Newlove at the University of Alberta, March 19, 1981:\t….Just published a body of poetry, which has been seen to be very, very important to Canadian writing: John Newlove. [Audience Applause]\n \n\n14:50\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Sheila Watson at the University of Alberta, January 28, 1977:\t… I don’t think I have to tell you the pleasure I have in introducing Sheila Watson into this series of readings, so I would just present her with the greatest pleasure I can to you today: Sheila Watson. [Audience Applause]\n \n\n15:03\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing Robert Kroetsch at the University of Alberta, November 23, 1978:\t…approach but I feel that the need for an introduction is less than apparent in an audience like this, but it’s nice to have him back again, alumni of this university and one of the best writers, I think, in Canada today. Robert Kroetsch has written numerous novels, The Words of my Roaring, The Stud Horseman, Going Indian, and his most recent one available right now in your bookstore, What the Crow Said, and many books of poetry, including Seed Catalogue and the Stone Hammer Poems. And I don’t think I need to say anything more except welcome Robert Kroetsch. [Applause]\n \n\n15:40\tArchival Audio, Douglas Barbour introducing bpNichol at the University of Alberta, March 22, 1979:\t[Inaudible] I think I – [Laughs] yeah, those of you who aren’t quite as close to as I am. I wanna say that it’s a great pleasure to have him back at the University of Alberta for a reading today. He won the Governor General’s Award in 1971 for as both an editor, a prose writer, and a poet. And since that time, as well as before, he’s been carrying on in all those areas. He’s a member of the editorial board of Coach House Press, one of the leading little presses in the country. As a prose writer in the past year has seen the publication of Craft Dinner, A Bunch of Proses from 1966 to 1976 collection of his shorter works, including one of the works that helped him win that Governor General’s Award, The True Eventual Story of Billy the Kid. He – as a prose writer he also published this year journal, a long work of great complexity and emotional, hard hitting-ness I suppose I can say. And as a poet, of course, he is known as both a sound poet and a concrete poet – as a sound poet, a concrete poet, and as he likes to put a trad poet. In sound poetry in the past year, I have seen him perform solo in Glasgow and with The Four Horseman at the 11th International Poetry Sound Festival – sound poetry in Toronto. And as a concrete poet he is also known internationally for his work in that field. And as a trad poet so to speak, The Ongoing Martyrology amongst as many other work stands as testament to the incredible amount of work and the value of it, I think to us all. So with that, bpNichol.\n \n\n17:28\tMichael O’Driscoll:\tThose samples come from the years 1977 to 1981. Doug’s style—as always—is exemplary: warm, exuberant, welcoming; but, also, each time he affirms at least three important things: the relationships that bind a network of poets and writers cross Canada; his careful attention to the work of others; and the joy of celebrating a shared community of practice. Little did I know that evening in Guelph, as my friends and I sat and listened, jaws agape, to Doug’s 1985 performance of “Full Moon,” that we were being invited into something very, very special that was already in the making: a community of listeners, and a mode of listening, to each other, to ourselves, and to the world around us\n \n\n18:29\tArchival Recording, Douglas Barbour, The Bards of March, 1986:\t[End of the recording played earlier of Barbour performing “That Gone Tune.” Nonlinguistic and songlike utterances compose most of the poem but these words are heard clearly at the end: “Go with it, go with it! If you’re lucky then you’re sounding, and you’re gone,” with a stretching of the word “gone”.] [Audience Applause] Thank you.\n \n\n22:05\tKatherine McLeod:\t[Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Music] You’ve been listening to ShortCuts. Our guest this month was Michael O’Driscoll. ShortCuts is mixed and mastered by Judith Burr, hosted by Hannah McGregor, transcribed by Kelly Cubbon, and hosted by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening. [End Music: ShortCuts Theme Music]\n \n\n\n"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9987","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 3.7, Moving, Still, 18 April 2022, McLeod "],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/moving-still/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2022],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/023b5797-abed-48ca-ba69-1868d7cacb3c/audio/0fb8f4d8-ae79-48dd-b220-44cfbb8e03b1/default_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-3-7.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:17:17\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"16,663,659 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"ShortCuts 3.7\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/moving-still/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2022-04-18\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"ARCHIVAL AUDIO\\n\\nPhyllis Webb reading (with Gwendolyn MacEwen) in Montreal on November 18, 1966, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/phyllis-webb-at-sgwu-1966-roy-kiyooka.\\n\\nShortCuts 2.7: Moving, 19 April 2021, https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/moving.\\n\\nRESOURCES\\n\\nCollis, Stephen. Almost Islands: Phyllis Webb and the Pursuit of the Unwritten. Talonbooks, 2018.\\n\\nMcLeod, Katherine. “Listening to the Archives of Phyllis Webb.” In Moving Archives. Ed. Linda Morra. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2020. 113-131.\\n\\nWebb, Phyllis. Naked Poems. Periwinkle Press, 1965.\\n\\nWebb, Phyllis. Peacock Blue: The Collected Poems. Ed. John Hulcoop. Talonbooks, 2014.\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549814771712,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["In this episode, ShortCuts returns to a recording of Phyllis Webb in order to re-listen through this season’s question of how the archive remembers. What is held in the ‘room’ of the recording, and how does that differ from the room where reading took place? Or from the room of personal memory? What exceeds those rooms? And what does it feel like to hear their contours? Join producer Katherine McLeod as she reflects upon these questions while listening to a 1966 recording of Phyllis Webb reading from Naked Poems.\n\n00:09\nShortCuts Theme Music:\n[Piano Overlaid with Distorted Beat]\n\n00:10\nHannah McGregor:\nWelcome to SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly\nSpokenWeb Podcast\nepisode) you can join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? ShortCuts is an extension of the ShortCuts blog posts on Spoken Web blog, so if you love what you hear make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. If you’re a researcher with the Spoken Web Project, think about joining Katherine on shortcuts to discuss an archival clip that has impacted your work. Especially if you’re a student who has been digitizing and cataloging recordings, and there’s a sound that stands out to you after all those hours of listening, let Katherine know! Pitch Katherine, your audio by emailing SpokenWebPodcast@gmail.com. Now here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini-stories about how literature sounds. [\nSpokenWeb Podcast\nTheme Music: Instrumental Overlapped with Feminine Voice]\n\n01:28\nKatherine McLeod:\nWelcome to ShortCuts, a monthly minisode in which we listen closely and carefully to a shortcut [Sound Effect: Scissors] from the Spoken Web archives. This month it is April, the month of poetry. The audio that we’ll be listening to is a poem by Canadian poet, Phyllis Webb. It is in fact, a series of poems from\nNaked Poems\n, poems that open up space and leave room for the listener to listen, to listen quietly, or to fill up that space with their listening. The space is audible in her reading of the poems, and it is visible on the page, as Webb comments on when she introduces\nNaked Poems\nto her Montreal audience in 1966.\n\n02:15\nArchival Audio, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\nI want to move on now to my latest book, which is called Naked Poems, in which one of your local critics – or at least he wrote for the\nMontreal Star\nthis particular point – exclaimed of the price because there are so few words in the book. [Audience Laughter] It’s $2.25. [Audience Laughter] These poems are very small and therefore very expensive [Audience Laughter] and – came at a bitter price, I may say. To me. They came quite as a surprise and I didn’t know what I was doing when I wrote them the first 14 or so. I thought, my goodness, what are these little things doing here? And I couldn’t quite take them seriously. And then I began to see the order that really was intrinsic in them and realized that here was something almost a new form for me to work on. And it’s very bare, naked, undecorated. And I wanted to get rid of all my affectations. And so I decided to to write, oh a couple hundred of them. And I wrote about a hundred and then got hung up on a technical problem and finally reduced them to, I dunno, 40 or so that are in this book. So this is a distillation, let’s say. [Pages Turning] I’m going to read the first 14, which comprised a total poem. In the sense the whole book is a poem. And then I’ll read a few more, as long as my voice and your patience will hold out.\n\n04:31\nKatherine McLeod:\nIn listening to how Phyllis Webb tells her audience about Naked Poems we hear what it would’ve been like to be there in the room. We hear the audience and their laughter. The feeling as though she is holding the pages of Naked Poems in her hands, as she is telling us about them. We can almost feel the touch of the page, the small distilled poems, how they came to her at a bitter price. What does she mean by that? Now, if all of this is sounding somewhat familiar it’s because the clips that I’m playing are from recordings of Webb reading Naked Poems that were the focus of April’s ShortCuts last season. We are returning to this recording for a number of reasons, but most of all as a remembrance of Webb. Last year in April, I created the ShortCuts based on the Webb recording as a gift for her. April was her birthday month and I imagined it reaching her ears on the West Coast. In November 2021 Webb passed away at a glorious old age and even with such a full long life, it still felt like such a loss. This season of ShortCuts, there has been an ongoing theme of listening to remember. And if you listen back through each episode, you’ll hear it developing. I produce each episode in the month it is released. And so that development was not planned at the outset. Each episode has been a way to dive deeper and deeper into one of the stories told in that first episode, “What the Archive Remembers”. In that, I talk about an interaction at a conference in which someone told me that they’d really felt the weight and impact of hearing bp nichol’s voice in a recording that I had played. What strikes me now is that we are in a position in which we have vast amounts of recorded materials of poets, and that those recordings are perhaps more accessible then they have ever been before. That’s thanks to the internet, but also thanks to large scale audio digitization projects such as SpokenWeb, among others. What I’m getting at here is that we’ve had recordings of poets voices for a long time now, but have we ever had them so readily available and with a record of their voice from throughout their career, throughout their lives? It is with this in mind that I invite all of us to return back to that recording of Phyllis Webb, reading in Montreal in 1966. And you’ll hear my voice from last year, commenting on that audio followed by my voice now at the end.\n\n07:22\nArchival Audio, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\nAnd then I’ll read a few more, as long as my voice [Pages Flipping] and your patience were hold out.\n\n07:29\nKatherine McLeod, ShortCuts 2.7:\nThe reading was recorded in 1966 in Montreal at Sir George Williams University, now Concordia. At that reading, the second reader was Gwendolyn MacEwen. Imagine hearing Phyllis Webb and Gwendolyn McEwen reading in person on the same night. MacEwen would’ve been sitting in the audience, listening to Webb read. Here is Webb reading “Suite I” and “Suite II” from Naked Poems.\n07:58\nArchival Audio, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\n[Webb Reading] “Suite I” Moving to establish distance between our houses. It seems I welcome you in. Your mouth blesses me all over. There is room. And here. And here. And here. And over. And over. Your. Mouth. Tonight, quietness in me and the room. I am enclosed by a thought and some walls. The bruise. Again, you have left your mark. All we have. Skin shuttered secretly. [Page Turning] Flies. Tonight in this room, two flies on the ceiling are making love quietly or so it seems down here. [Audience Laughter]. Your blouse. I people this room with things, a chair, a lamp, a fly. Two books by Mary Ann Moore. I have thrown my gloves on the floor. Was it only last night? You took with so much gentleness, my dark. Sweet tooth. While you were away, I held you like this in my mind. It is a good mind that can embody perfection with exactitude. The sun comes through plum curtains. I said, the sun is gold in your eyes. It isn’t the sun. You said. [Page Turning] On the floor, your blouse. The plum light falls more golden, going down. Tonight, quietness in the room. We knew. [Page Turning] Then you must go. I sat cross-legged on the bed. There is no room for self pity, I said. I lied. In the gold darkening light you dressed. I hid my face in my hair. The room that held you is still here. [Page Turning] You brought me clarity. Gift after gift I wear. Poems naked. In the sunlight. On the floor. [Page Turning]\n\n11:31\nKatherine McLeod, ShortCuts 2.7:\nIn that reading, we hear the space of the poem and we feel the presence of that space. We see the sun beam shining through the air. We see the blouse sitting on the floor of the room. We feel the air thick with eros, between objects, between people, between the poet and subject. What would it be like to hear this in the room in 1966? This expression of female desire to be contained within the archives of this reading series?\n\n12:04\nArchival Audio, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\nWhile you were away. I held you like this in my mind.\n12:10\nKatherine McLeod, ShortCuts 2.7:\nWe hear this holding. The quietness of each page.\n12:14\nArchival Audio, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\nQuietness in the room. We knew. [Page Turning].\n12:19\nKatherine McLeod, ShortCuts 2.7:\nWe hear the turning of the page. The room.\n12:23\nArchival Audio, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\nThe room that held you is still here.\n12:27\nKatherine McLeod, ShortCuts 2.7:\nWe are listening to desire in the making every time we press play on this recording, as though we were returning to the same room, the room of the poem, the room of the reading, the voice moving –\n\n12:41\nArchival Audio, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\n[Ambient Room Sounds].\n12:41\nKatherine McLeod:\n– I hear how in last year’s ShortCuts, I was so interested in that space of the room and what it could hold. I hear that now as speaking to what I was exploring of ShortCuts, as a method of feminist placemaking. A room, an audible place in which to hear women’s voices from the archives. For them to take up sonic space and for us to hear what feelings are made through those sounds. I was interested in and how that related to my role as producer curating this space. How much does one hold up voices by framing them or does one simply press play? One tries (or rather I try) to strike the right balance between supporting the voice with care in how it is introduced, why that voice has been pulled out of the archives, and then letting the listener and the voice embark on their own dance. That is how last year I was hearing the line…\n\n13:53\nArchival Audio, Phyllis Webb, 1966:\nThe room that held you is still here.\n13:57\nKatherine McLeod:\nThis year, I still hear it that way but I also hear the room as a precursor to the room that was far from Webb in 1966, but would be the room in which I met her when I visited her on Salt Spring Island in 2017. I think of that room because I wish I could have visited her once more again. And yet I’m also grateful for that time in which I was there. That room in a senior’s care facility was her room. It was her home. In that room of her own we talked about the 1960s. We sat amid her paintings. Her art was holding us in that room, along with the warmth of her smile and generosity. I thought to myself, this is a woman who knows how to live. I say that in the present tense, because it feels like she is still living. The room that held you is still here. And it is still here. We are still listening. What a word still. It implies a pause in motion, and yet at the same time, it implies a persistence. Still moving. Moving. That is what I called ShortCuts last year. Phyllis Webb is still moving. I say that thinking of these words that I wrote at the end of a chapter about Webb in [the book]\nMoving Archives\n, and they feel like some of the only words that can wrap up, that can hold together an episode that does not want to end.\n\n15:42\nKatherine McLeod\n[Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Music] [Reading out loud from the book\nMoving Archives\n] Only Phyllis Webb inhabits the place where her voice dwells. A reminder of this appeared to me by chance while typing these lines. When I noticed that Stephen Collis had posted a photo to Twitter with the caption “Phyllis Webb’s hands”. The camera looks down at an angle at Webb holding her entire body of poetic work\nPeacock Blue: The Collected Poems\n. The book lies open, the table of contents on her lap, a tray of olives and brie sit next to her, ready to be consumed throughout what promises to be a long conversation with Collis about poetry. [Music Pauses] Webbs right hand is held up, long fingers spread wide and flexed as though she is about to turn the page. Quietly, she is moving. [Music Restarts] You’ve been listening to ShortCuts. It was recorded in the city of Montreal or what is known as Tiohtià:ke in the language of the Kanien’kehá:ka nation. ShortCuts is hosted by Hannah McGregor transcribed by Kelly Cubbon, mixed and mastered by Judith Burr and Kate Moffatt and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening. 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Diving into a recording that concluded last year’s symposium, producer Katherine McLeod plays excerpts from Oana Avasilichioaei’s live performance of “Chambersonic (IV)” and Klara du Plessis’s reading of “Post-Mortem of the Event.” What is the sound of this event? Listening to the recording now invites reflections on what this event sounds like: how do we hear its affect, its traces, and how it shifts in time?\n\n00:10\nHannah McGregor:\n[Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Music] Welcome to SpokenWeb ShortCuts each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week) following the monthly\nSpokenWeb Podcast\nepisode, you can join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini series. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask: what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? ShortCuts is an extension of the ShortCuts blog posts on Spoken Web blog. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to SpokenWeb.ca for more. If you’re a researcher with the SpokenWeb Project, think about joining Katherine on ShortCuts to discuss an archival clip that has impacted your work. Especially if you’re a student who has been digitizing and cataloguing recordings, and there’s a sound that stands out to you after all those hours of listening, let Katherine know pitch Katherine, your audio by emailing SpokenWebPodcast@gmail.com. [End Music: ShortCuts Theme Music] Now here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini stories about how literature sounds. [Music Interlude:\nSpokenWeb Podcast\nTheme Music] \n01:27\nKatherine McLeod:\nWelcome to ShortCuts. When this ShortCuts comes out, it will be in the same week of this year’s SpokenWeb Symposium and Sound Institute. At the end of last year’s symposium called “Listening, Sound, Agency” there was an online Words & Music Show. Here is SpokenWeb’s Jason Camlot, welcoming those tuning in and explaining the relationship between this event and the symposium week that was coming to an end.\n01:58\nAudio Recording, Jason Camlot, Words & Music Show, 2021:\nWell, we’re gonna get things started. I just, I wanted to say a few words before I turn things over to the host of the evening and of all Words and Music Shows – Ian Ferrier – who you just saw. I’m Jason Camlot. I’m a co-host of this show. I’ve actually been co-hosting these, or background hosting them with Ian, since March 2020, when pandemic forced us onto Zoom, out of the Casa del Popolo, which you see in the background of my screen, my fake background. This event was imagined as a celebration of that symposium, and as a way of bringing the local community in touch with some of the participants in the symposium. For me, it’s a really fun way to finish what’s been an amazing week of activity and thinking and sharing.\n02:48\nKatherine McLeod:\nAlong with SpokenWeb and Symposium poets – Kevin McNeilly, Cole Mash, Erin Scott, and Klara du Plessis who performed that night – the special guest for that show was poet and intermedia artist Oana Avasilichioaei. Oana had performed live at the 2019 SpokenWeb Symposium in Vancouver, along with participating in various SpokenWeb events in Montreal. In 2021, her book\nEight Track\nhad just received great acclaim and was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for poetry. Featuring her on that night was part of a way of making a connection between the symposium and local Montreal poets. At the symposium, I had, in fact, presented a paper with Dr. Emily Murphy about Oana’s poetry as notation. For that presentation we had been working with a recording of\nChambersonic\nthat is published digitally in visual and audio formats on the\nCapilano Review\n. But Oana’s performance of a version of\nChambersonic\non that night of the online Words & Music Show was its own version. It was performed live. And, after listening, again, to this performance by Oana, I was struck by what Klara du Plessis chooses to read, following Oana’s performance. In listening to the recording, we are hearing a listening taking place within the event. And so in this ShortCuts we’ll be listening to Oana – and then we’ll be listening to Klara – as a listening to the event. What the event sounds like, what it feels like. What are its traces left behind, and its shifts in time? Here’s Ian Ferrier introducing Oana Avasilichioaei.\n04:37\nAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words & Music, 2021:\n…our star performer of the evening. Her work interweaves poetry, sound, photography, and translation to explore an expanded idea of language, polyphonic structures and borders of listening. Her six collections of poetry and poetry-hybrids include\nEight Track\nfrom Talonbooks, which is the finalist for the Klein prize for poetry and the Governor General’s Award, and\nLiminal\nfrom Talonbooks in 2015. She’s created many performance and sound works, written a libretto for a one act opera called\nCells of Wind\nin 2020, and translated 10 books of poetry and prose from French and Romanian, most recently Bertrand Laverdure’s\nThe Neptune Room\nwhich is also a finalist for the Governor General’s literary award for translation. She’s performed a number of times in our show and each time has brought amazing work. So please welcome Oana tonight. Yeah.\n05:33\nAudio Recording, Oana Avasilichioaei, Words & Music, 2021:\nThank you, thank you so much, Ian. Thank you so much for having me and I’m super happy to be here. So I’m going to share two pieces. The first piece is a video piece that I made last fall, which I call a filmpoem. It’s called “Tracking Animal (an extemporization)”, and it uses some text from the long work in this – in a track called “Tracking Animal.” And in fact, it will take us back outside. I’m just going to share my screen here and play it for you.\n06:14\nKatherine McLeod:\nWhen Oana said those words, she did take us back outside. The visuals then showed her standing and walking in recognizable local Montreal spaces. She had recorded this video alone during the early times of the pandemic. You could see and feel that aloneness. The tracking of the self. It’s also quite moving that the spaces that she recorded in are spaces that many Montrealers have used to create art on their own during the pandemic — and that those spaces will soon, once again, be vibrant with arts events happening in them this summer outside. It is a beautiful piece, this video, and you can find a link to it in the show notes. The fact that she took us outside resonated with me as a listener, because I remember that when I was tuning into this show, I was listening on my balcony. I took a photo that night of my listening with my computer and Oana and the moon shining above. I sent that photo to her the next day as a form of thanks. And I look at it again now to remind myself that it was live. I stress the word live because the next piece she performed and the one that we’ll listen to was a version of\nChambersonic\n, and it was performed live.\n07:45\nAudio Recording, Oana Avasilichioaei, Words & Music, 2021:\nThe second piece I’m going to do is actually going to be a live work. It’s new, it’s from a new body of work that I’m working on called\nChambersonic\n— the larger project. And each piece I’m doing is numbered. So this is “Chambersonic (IV)”, and it’s based on a score, “Chambersonic (I)”, that looks like this [Shows Page to Audience] , and it was a version of both the score and the sound piece that was published in\nThe Capilano Review\nin their fall issue. So, I’m going to need to change some audio settings. And then I’m going to start the piece… [Oana Performing, Voice Effect Reverberates, Sounds Play in Background] This, this is a lecture on phonetics. This is a setting on music. This is a sounding of silence. This is a manifest of now, this is a variant of being, this is a lecture on phonetics. This is a setting on music. This is a sounding of silence. This is a manifest of now. This is a variant of being… Let form be oral. A foundation…. [Singing] Sonority… An impossible lone sound… —netic … Recording… [Whispered] The ghost of sound. Let form be oral. A foundation… [Voices overlap] Corporeal, phonetic, fragments, re-assemblages. [Whispered] The ghost of sound…\n10:45\nKatherine McLeod:\nThis, this is a setting on music. This is. What is this? It is as though she is asking us to consider what is this this-ness — of sonority? Of an impossible lone sound? Of the ghost of sound? It is as though she is saying, I am performing now. This is the performance. This. We hear this even while knowing that there is an accompanying score. Is that too a this? She conveys an assertion of presence in the performance itself, which is why it feels so powerful to remember that it is happening live. As you are listening to this recording. How does listening now differ from me listening on my balcony under the moon to the live-stream? Where is the event now? [Audio of Oana’s Performance Begins] Let’s re-enter the sound and we’ll hear Ian Ferrier take us from Oana’s performance into Klara du Plessis’s reading that follows, and you’ll hear why I let the tape play and where Klara’s reading takes us…\n11:56\nAudio Recording, Oana Avasilichioaei, Words & Music, 2021:\n[Oana Performing, Voice Effect Reverberates, Sounds Play in Background] Voice… Of timbre… The voice. Fills the void. The activity of sound, quieter, and louder, longer, and shorter… [Overlapping voice] The activity of sound — and quieter. Higher, and lower. Longer, and short. The activity of sound, louder and quieter, higher and lower… where silence differentiates.\n13:36\nAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words & Music, 2021:\nOh, that was lovely. Yeah. So nice to hear. And I love the sung voice and the talking voice and the whisper voice and the industrial sound beneath it. That’s really just a beautiful piece. Thank you so much.\n13:51\nAudio Recording, Oana Avasilichioaei, Words & Music, 2021:\nThank you. Thank you. Took me a moment to get back. [Laughs]\n13:57\nAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words & Music, 2021:\nYeah, it took me a moment too. I’m still [Sings] louder [Laughs] right. So thank you so much for that.\n14:07\nAudio Recording, Oana Avasilichioaei, Words & Music, 2021:\nThanks so much for having me again.\n14:09\nAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words & Music, 2021:\nYeah. Nice to see you. Yeah, yeah. And next up we have a person who’s been working quite a bit through the symposium as well. Her name is Klara du Plessis. She’s a poet, a critic, a literary curator too. And she resides in Montreal. She’s the winner of the 2019 Pat Lowther Memorial award for her debut collection\nEkke\n, which was published with Palimpsest Press. Her second book, which was released in the fall of 2020 is\nHell Light Flesh\n, and Klara is currently a PhD candidate at Concordia University researching the recent, contemporary, and experimental curation of poetry readings. Please welcome Klara du Plessis.\n14:54\nAudio Recording, Klara du Plessis, Words & Music, 2021:\nThank you so much for that really generous introduction, Ian. I’m still astounded by Oana’s performance and everything that came before. And so I feel like I’m still in a transitional phase, trying to get my bearings. It’s also the end of an incredible symposium week that’s been running since Tuesday night, and maybe as a result of that, I made a couple of decisions. One of them is to read new work. I’ve decided to try out some works that are in what I would call a draft and a half [Laugh]. So they’ve been lying around for a while they’re maybe six months or eight months old. But I only really edited them very lightly. I’m reading it because I feel like I kind of trust the people here and feel comfortable with a kind of tradition that Words & Music seems to have for people to try things. But the second reason that I am I’ve decided to read from this work is because I feel like it emanates from the research I’ve been doing at Concordia. And very much is a result of me reading works on archives and doing work in audio, audio and digital, both analog and digital archives. And, it’s a short, long poem. The kind of character in the poem is the event. But while I was writing it, because I was kind of thinking of postmortem and anatomy and so on, I did at some point look at that famous old Rembrandt painting of the anatomy table, which has the kind of famous, strange hand, like the hand, if you look at that painting, it’s got a hand that’s supposed to be the right hand, but it’s actually a left hand or a reverse. Um, and that kind of made its way into this poem also. So it’s called “Post-mortem of the event.” [Klara reading poem] The event lies on the table with its left hand and frontal arm dissected, sinuses and muscles, and maybe one disposable bone strumming like lines from a poem, pink inner exposeé, rationalizes the soul from vessel to enlightenment the latter so mystical, who knows how the verse becomes a multidimensional grid. Logic of the luminous skin of the other hand, intact pale rams brawn of the Cartesian Caucasian corpse. The event opened undocumented archive over the table, displayed, displayed, played, and atomically laid out to rest resist laboratory pages white as coats. Only thing is that the left hand is not the left, but the right, but not the right hand, but a second right hand, multifarious body mirroring itself in hands in hand rippling along its definitions of progress, usage and control. On the one hand, and on the other hand as wingspan on the one hand and on the one hand or on the other hand, and on the other hand, the archive of hands fans out fingers replicating selves, look, really look at this artwork. So strange armoured in mourning like the night…\n18:49\nKatherine McLeod:\nThe poem that Klara is reading from will be part of a forthcoming book in 2024.\nPost-mortem of the Event\nis, in fact, the working title of that collection. Oana’s performance that night is also a work-in-progress. It’s one version of “Chambersonic (IV)” of\nChambersonic\nand the written textual material traces of that project will be coming out as a book also in 2024 under the title,\nChambersonic\n. Let’s hear how Klara’s poem ends, and then we’ll hear Ian’s voice again, asking what comes next?\n19:25\nAudio Recording, Klara du Plessis, Words & Music, 2021:\n[Klara reading poem] …with eight men and an extra dead struck still in time in the instant before darkness hits before bodies speed up moving the event, rapid fire and risqué rinsing themselves in light and a handshake with air. Thank you.\n19:48\nAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words & Music, 2021:\nWhat a great piece. And that’s in progress?\n19:53\nAudio Recording, Klara du Plessis, Words & Music, 2021:\nYeah, this is new stuff. [Laughs]\n19:55\nAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words & Music, 2021:\n[Laughs] Yeah, it’s really great. It’s really, really, really stunning all the different parts connecting around the event. So thank you very much for that. And thank you for your work on this conference and to Jason and to Ali as well. It’s been an amazing journey, which I guess you get to relax from tomorrow. Or do you do a post-mortem, or what happens at the end of all this?\n20:22\nKatherine McLeod:\nWhen Ian asks Klara about the post-mortem of the event, it’s quite funny to hear that now because our symposium committee for listening sound agency has gone on to produce many collaborative outputs. The event has not ended. There’s an art book called\nQuotes\nedited by Klara and Emma Telaro about to be at this year’s symposium; also to be launched is a vinyl record with sounds from symposium participants, compiled by Deanna Fong, Angus Tarnowsky and Jason Camlot; a podcast episode has been released about the symposium and it was produced by Mathieu Aubin and Stephanie Ricci. And there will be a forthcoming issue of English Studies in Canada called “New Sonic Approaches to Literary Studies” edited by Jason Camlot and me, Katherine McLeod. So when you hear the end of this event, know that it is not the end, just like the poems that we have listened to continue to be in progress. This, this too is the event. [Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Music]\n21:32\nAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words & Music, 2021:\nSo nice to see everybody tonight. Thanks for your performances to Klara, to Cole, to Erin, to Oana, to Kevin. It’s been a really fun ride tonight. So thank you.\n21:43\nAudio Recording, Klara du Plessis, Words & Music, 2021:\nThank you. Thank you both.\n21:46\nAudio Recording, Kevin McNeilly, Words & Music, 2021:\nThanks so much. It’s terrific.\n21:49\nAudio Recording, Ian Ferrier, Words & Music, 2021:\nGoodnight, everyone. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for coming.\n21:51\nAudio Recording, Jason Camlot, Words & Music, 2021:\nWe’ll see you all soon.\n21:58\nKatherine McLeod:\nYou’ve been listening to ShortCuts. If you want to learn more about where the sounds you’ve heard have come from head to SpokenWeb.ca and check the show notes for ShortCuts. If you’re listening to this on the release day, and you want to tune-in to SpokenWeb’s Symposium this year, head to spoken web.ca and click on “Symposia.” Plus you can find the podcast episode based on last year’s symposium by checking previous episodes of The SpokenWeb Podcast. You’ll find “Listening, Sound, Agency: a retrospective listening to the 2021 SpokenWeb Symposium” as the March, 2022 episode. ShortCuts is hosted by Hannah McGregor transcribed by Kelly Cubbon mixed and mastered by Judith Burr, Kate Moffatt, and Miranda Eastwood, and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening. 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Chronicles: Early Works. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011.\\n\\nCamlot, Jason and Katherine McLeod. “Unarchiving the Literary Event.” CanLit Across Media: Unarchiving the Literary Event. Eds. Jason Camlot and Katherine McLeod. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019. 3-31.\\n\\n“Gerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest Collection.” SFU Digitized Collections, https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/gerry-gilbert-radiofreerainforest-collection.\\n\\nKinesis. Periodicals. Vancouver : Vancouver Status of Women, 1 Sept. 1988. https://open.library.ubc.ca/collections/kinesis/items/1.0045699.\\n\\nOur Lives. Toronto: Black Women’s Collective. Volume 2 5.6 (Summer/Fall 1988), https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/publications/our-lives-canadas-first-black-womens-newspaper/ourlives-02-0506-summer-fall-1988/.\\n\\n“radiofreerainforest 3 & 28 July and 7 August, 1988.” Gerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest Collection: SFU Digitized Collections,  https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/radiofreerainforest-357/radiofreerainforest-3-28-july-and-7-august-1988.\\n\\n“radiofreerainforest 7, 25 August, 1988 and 30 October, 1988.” Gerry Gilbert radiofreerainforest Collection: SFU Digitized Collections, https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/radiofreerainforest-90/radiofreerainforest-7-25-august-1988-and-30-october-1988.\\n\\n“ShortCuts 2.9: Situating Sound.” Produced by Katherine McLeod. The SpokenWeb Podcast. 21 June 2021. https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/situating-sound/.\\n\\n“Talking Transcription: Accessibility, Collaboration, and Creativity.” Produced by Kelly Cubbon and Katherine McLeod. The SpokenWeb Podcast. 6 June 2022. https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/talking-transcription-accessibility-collaboration-and-creativity/.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549815820289,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["In the making of ShortCuts, series producer Katherine McLeod often talks about how recorded sound is held not only within archives but also by the work of contextualizing whenever one selects an archival audio clip and presses play. Returning to an audio recording of Dionne Brand played in ShortCuts 2.9 “Situating Sound” (June 2021), Katherine reminds us that the process of unarchiving sound is an embodied one. We listen as bodies to the archive. Moreover, how we choose to contextualize sound impacts any listening to it, and written transcripts too frame our understanding of the audio content. Building upon the most recent episode of The SpokenWeb, “Talking Transcription: Accessibility, Collaboration, and Creativity,” this episode of ShortCuts explores the transcript as another version of holding the sound, while, at the same time, invites a listening to that which exceeds that holding.\n\n“…even those that do not hold a wind’s impression”\n– Dionne Brand from Primitive Offensive\n\n00:09\tShortCuts Theme Music:\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n \n\n00:09\tHannah McGregor:\tWelcome to SpokenWeb ShortCuts. Each month on alternate fortnights (that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode) join me, Hannah McGregor and our minisode host and curator, Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s ShortCuts mini-series. We’ll share with you, especially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives to ask, what does it mean to cut and splice digitally? What kinds of new stories and audio criticism can be produced through these short archival clips? ShortCuts is an extension of the ShortCuts blog posts on SPOKENWEBLOG, so if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to SpokenWeb.ca for more. If you’re a researcher with the SpokenWeb Project, think about joining Katherine on ShortCuts to discuss an archival clip that has impacted your work, especially if you’re a student that has been digitizing and cataloguing recordings that there’s a sound that stands out to you after all those hours of listening. Let Katherine know! Pitch Katherine your audio by emailing SpokenWebPodcast@gmail.com [End Music: Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat] Now here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb ShortCuts, mini-stories about how literature sounds.\n \n\n00:58\tSpokenWeb Podcast Theme Music:\n \n\n[Instrumental Overlapped with Feminine Voice]\n01:27\tKatherine McLeod:\tWelcome to ShortCuts. Last month we immersed in the world of the SpokenWeb symposium. The ShortCuts episode called “The Event” included audio that resonates with both this year’s and last year’s symposium and institute. And if you were at the symposium you’ll know that I was recording ShortCuts Live! A new type of ShortCuts episode recorded live on site with various researchers within the SpokenWeb network. Stay tuned for ShortCuts Live! in the next season. This month, we continue the season’s theme of how the archives remembers. We’ll be listening to a clip from a past ShortCuts – one from last June, exactly one year ago – and we’ll listen to it again in the context of the transcription episode on The SpokenWeb Podcast released at the start of this month. In that episode, Kelly Cubbon and I talk about transcription as a process that is rooted in conversation and collaboration. Do check it out – Episode 9 “Talking Transcription: Accessibility, Collaboration, and Creativity”. After making that episode, I thought I’d take a look back at some of the transcripts for ShortCuts. When Kelly transcribes the audio, it is usually quite straightforward but when there are questions they’re often questions related to providing further context as to where the sound is coming from, or if we should put a cue for the reader as to where that voice is from, or where it was recorded, right in the transcript. To quote Kelly herself making one of my favourite points in our episode…\n \n\n03:08\tKelly Cubbon, S3E9, SpokenWeb Podcast:\tThe overlapping sound is one thing, but I think also overlapping context for lack of a better word has been something I’ve I think we’ve been working to indicate such as if someone appears in an episode in a Zoom interview and then in an archival recording of them, and that archival recording includes them speaking to the audience as an aside and then performing poetry. And then maybe they’re in kind of a more formal voiceover audio. There might be four instances of slightly different context to indicate.\n \n\n03:42\tKatherine McLeod:\tKelly and I have talked so much about how these questions are not transcription problems but rather generative transcription challenges and situations to learn from. Another challenge that can emerge in ShortCuts is how to transcribe words from a poem read out loud. What we have gone with is an approach that transcribes the words as spoken out loud (though including in brackets that the speaker is reading a poem since often the tone of the voice has changed.) That way the transcript is not attempting to reproduce the poem on the page as it is published – rather, the transcript aims to represent the sounds heard in the podcast and to make them more accessible. Those examples of what can come up in the process of transcription speak to what I’ve described in past ShortCuts as a figuring out, a navigating of how much to frame the archival audio clips that I play for you here. How much do I explain their context? Or do I simply press play? A phrase that captures this balancing act (at least for me!) is one that emerged out of the partial replay that we’ll be hearing in this ShortCuts. [Sound Effect: Tape Rewinding and Stopping] … is what kind of a framework does audio clipped out of context need to feel supported? And I say that while holding out my arms, gesturing as if I’m attempting to hold the sound. [Sound Effect: Tape Rewinding and Stopping] I’ve returned to this image and to this phrase and to this act in many moments in these episodes when thinking about as place held, supported, with my arms outstretched, as an embodied experience – an audible place created as a feminist placemaking. Holding with arms outstretched conveys that the work of framing is my intervention in it – I am not neutral in how I frame the sound even if I am also offering it to you to do what you wish with it, letting you know that the sound is there ready to be listening to. I Am holding the sound carefully, knowing how difficult it can be to take a recorded voice, with all of its situated affect attached to it, out of the archives. To unarchive carefully. That got me thinking, a transcript is also an attempt to hold the sound – it attempts to hold the sound in such a way that increases accessibility to the content while also recognizing that the transcript is, in some way, mediating the experience. With all of this in mind, let’s return to the episode aptly titled “Situating Sound” and hear it again in this moment in time. It is an episode that could be situated in the context of “Communal Memories” which I produced afterwards in December 2021, and that is based on the second part of this recording with the voice of late Stolo writer Lee Maracle. Hearing “Situating Sound” now makes me feel there’s no episode that necessarily comes before or after, but that these episodes continue to cycle around each other. With that let’s dive into “Situating Sound” from June 2021. [Sound Effect: Tape Fast Forwarding] And you’ll hear a recording of Dionne Brand reading in 1988. I invite you to think of how the transcript holds the sound, how the information I provide holds the sound, [Sound Effect: Tape Stops, Presses Play]. And how my voice holds the sound in that I am telling you about what you are going to hear, and to listen for moments when sound exceeds this holding… [Start Music: Piano Instrumental]\n \n\n07:39\tKatherine McLeod, S2E9, ShortCuts:\t…and she had also written about this solidarity in a 1988 issue of the Black women’s newspaper Our Lives that Brand had helped to edit. These pieces of context are only the beginning of unpacking the significance of these two women reading together. And unravelling this history all started by wanting to know more about one archival recording. [End Music: Piano Instrumental]So as we listen to this reading, what would it be like to be there in that room with Dionne Brand and Lee Maracle in 1988? Now in June, 2021, what does it feel like when you hear this recording wherever you might be listening from? How do we understand this recording in relation to the archive that holds it? I am recording this a week after Brand read from The Blue Clerk at an annual meeting of the Association of Canadian Archivists. How does Brand hear time? When she introduces what she reads from Primitive Offensive in the recording we’re about to hear she says that the poetry is made out of the pieces of history, a history that as she says, if you are Black in the Americas, you have to dig for it. How does that resonate with the lines where she chooses to end?\n \n\n08:57\tArchival Audio, Dionne Brand, 1988:\t… [Ambient Background Noise] [Reading Poetry] I won’t take any evidence of me, even that carved in the sky by the fingerprints of clouds every day. Even those that do not hold a wind’s impression. [Aside to Audience] Okay, that’s it. [Audience applause].\n \n\n09:14\tKatherine McLeod, S2E9, ShortCuts:\tAs we could hear in that recording, there are noises in the background. We’ll be hearing what sound like cars passing outside, we’ll hear some voices and might wonder if those are people talking outside the bookstore window, or perhaps this recording has been recorded over another one and we’re actually hearing the voices of another time bleeding through the tape. Here is Dionne Brand reading from her book, Primitive Offensive in a recording that was broadcast on radiofreerainforest on August 7th, 1988, and now that recording is held by and shapes an archive.\n \n\n10:00\tArchival Audio, Dionne Brand, 1988:\t[Static and various background noises throughout] I’m going to read a poem for my grandmother, a poem for my ancestors, really. I wrote this book Primitive Offensive because, for whatever history has left you, if you were Black in the Americas, you have to dig and dig and dig and memorize and memorize and learn and learn it and redo it and recover it and re– you know, because it isn’t anywhere else. And so this was my history book. Sometimes you arrive and find what seems to be nothing, and you have to dig for it. And this is a call to my ancestors about this history. And I looked for my ancestors and I found what there was. And so – and sometimes you find nothing and you make it anyway. [Laughs] You know, you find a piece of cloth, a bit of this, whatever, but you make it human. So –[Start of reading] Ancestor dirt/ ancestor snake/ ancestor lice / ancestor whip/ ancestor fish/ ancestor slime/ ancestor sea/ ancestor stick/ ancestor iron/ ancestor bush/ ancestor ship/ ancestor old woman, old bead/ let me feel your skin, old muscle, old stick/ where are my bells?/ my rattles/ my condiments, my things to fill houses and minutes/ The fat is starting, where are my things?/ My mixtures, my bones, my decorations/ old bread, old tamarind switch./ Will you bathe me in oils?/ Will you tie me in white cloth?/ Call me by my praise name/ Sing me Oshun song./ Oya against this clamour [Background Noise Rises; Inaudible Voices] / Ancestor old woman/ Send my things after me./ One moment, old lady more questions./ What happened to the ship in your leap? The boatswain, did he scan the passage’s terrible wet face/ The navigator, did he blink?/ Or steer that ship through your screaming night?/ The captain did he lash two slaves to the rigging, for example?/ Lady! My things/ Water leaden, my maps, my compass/ After all, what is the political position of stars? Drop your crusted cough, where you want./ My hands make precious things out of phlegm./ Ancestor wood/ Ancestor dog/ Ancestor ancestor, old man, dry stick, mustache, skin, and bone./ Why didn’t you remember? /Why didn’t you remember the name of our tribe?/Why didn’t you tell me before you died?/ Old horse, you made the white man ride you/ You shot off your leg for him./ Old man, the name of our tribe is all I wanted./ Instead, you went to the swamps and bush and rice paddies for the trading company and they buried you in water/ Crocodile, tears. /It would have been better to remember the name of our tribe./ Now, mosquitoes dance a ballet over your grave and the old woman buried with you wants to leave./ One thing for sure, dismembered woman, when you decide you are alone/ When you decide you are alone, /when you dance, it’s your own broken face. When you eat your own plate of stones/ For damn sure you are alone./ Where do you think you are going dismembered woman?/ Limbs chopped off at the ankles./ When you decide, believe me, you are alone./ Sleep, sleep, tangential phase, sleep,/ Sleeping, or waking/ Understand you are alone./ Diamonds pour from your vagina,/ and your breasts drip healing copper/ But listen, women, dismembered continent/ You are alone./See crying fool,/ You want to talk in gold/ You will cry in iron./ You want to dig up stones./ You will bury flesh./ You think you don’t need oils and amulets compelling powder and rely on smoke./ You want to throw people in cesspits./ Understand dismembered one, ululant /You are alone./ When waterfalls work, land surfaces./ I was sent to this cave./ I went out one day like a fool to find this cave, to find clay, to dig up metals to decorate my bare and painful breasts./ Water and clay for a poultice for this gash to find a map an imprint of me anywhere would have kept me calm./ Anywhere with description./ Instead, I found a piece of this/ A tooth, a bit of food hung on. /A metatarsal, which resembled mine./ Something else like a note. Musical. /ting ting, but of so little pitch so little lasting perhaps it was my voice./ And this too, a suggestion and insinuation so slight, it may be untrue./ Something moving over the brow as with eyes close to black/ a sensate pull/ Phantom! Knocks the forehead back in the middle of a dance. /No, I can’t say dance. It exaggerates./ Phantom. A bit of image./ A motion close to sound, a sound imaged on the retina resembling sound/ A sound seen out of the corner of my eye./ Emotion heard on my inner ear./ I poured over these like a paleontologist./ I dusted them off like an archeologist/ A swatch of cloth./ Skin, atlas, coarse utility, but enough./ Still only a bit of paint, of dye on the stone./ I can not say crude, but a crude thing./ A hair, a marking. That a fingernail to rock an ancient wounded scratch./ I handle these like a papyrologist contours/ A desert sprung here./ Migrations, suggestions, lies./ Phantom. A table and jotting up artful covert mud./ I noted these like a geopolitical scientist./ I will take any evidence of me even that carved in the sky by the fingerprints of clouds every day. Even those that do not hold a wind’s impression. [End of reading] [Aside to audience] Ok. That’s it. [Audience Applause]\n \n\n16:09\tKatherine McLeod, S2E9, ShortCuts:\tThat was the Dionne Brand reading from her book, Primitive Offensive. The recording was played on Vancouver’s co-op radio on August 7th, 1988 and the recording is held by the archives of radiofree rainforest. Now part of SFU library’s digital collections. [Start Music: ShortCuts Theme Music].\n \n\n16:33\tKatherine McLeod:\tYou’ve been listening to ShortCuts. It was recorded in Montreal or what is known as Tiohtià:ke in the language of the Kanien’kehá:ka nation. ShortCuts is hosted by Hannah McGregor, transcribed by Kelly Cubbon, mixed and mastered by Miranda Eastwood, and produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening. [End Music: ShortCuts Theme Music]\n "],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9990","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 3.10, [Replay] Moving, Still, 18 July 2022, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/replay-moving-still/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2022],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/d939009b-0129-4515-85b9-34a39f7b18fd/audio/25ff9391-8f6a-4558-b9e0-9ca82e415aa9/default_tc.mp3?nocache\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-3-10-mp3.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:18:49\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"18,073,435 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"shortcuts-3-10-mp3\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/replay-moving-still/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2022-07-18\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"content_notes":["*Transcript In Progress*"],"contents":["This month, ShortCuts is replaying a past episode as a response to this month’s full episode of The SpokenWeb Podcast. That episode – “starry and full of glory”: Phyllis Webb, in Memoriam (produced by Stephen Collis) – is a moving commemoration of the life and work of Canadian poet Phyllis Webb. Along with archival clips, the episode features conversations with two poets – Isabella Wang and Fred Wah – in which they talk about an unpublished poem of Webb’s. Listen to this replay of ShortCuts Ep. 3.7 “Moving, Still” and then, listen to Collis’s episode about Webb as a collective listening. What does the archive remember?"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"ARCHIVAL AUDIO\\n\\nPhyllis Webb reading (with Gwendolyn MacEwen) in Montreal on November 18, 1966, https://montreal.spokenweb.ca/sgw-poetry-readings/phyllis-webb-at-sgwu-1966-roy-kiyooka.\\n\\nShortCuts 2.7: Moving, 19 April 2021, https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/moving.\\n\\nRESOURCES\\n\\nCollis, Stephen. Almost Islands: Phyllis Webb and the Pursuit of the Unwritten. Talonbooks, 2018.\\n\\nMcLeod, Katherine. “Listening to the Archives of Phyllis Webb.” In Moving Archives. Ed. Linda Morra. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2020. 113-131.\\n\\nWebb, Phyllis. Naked Poems. Periwinkle Press, 1965.\\n\\nWebb, Phyllis. Peacock Blue: The Collected Poems. Ed. John Hulcoop. Talonbooks, 2014.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549816868864,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","score":2.539672},{"id":"9991","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 5.1, Introducing ShortCuts, Live!, 16 October 2023, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/introducing-shortcuts-live/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2023],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/cf9825d7-2330-4377-a62d-caa50ba79c7b/audio/33a2eb71-61fd-4394-a32d-9dfd116279a2/default_tc.mp3?nocache\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-master-1.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:08:24\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"8,078,777 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"shortcuts-master-1\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/introducing-shortcuts-live/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2023-10-16\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Archival audio sampled in this episode is from these past episodes: \\n\\nShortCuts 4.2 “ShortCuts Live! Talking with Sarah Cipes about Feminist Audio Editing,” produced by Katherine McLeod,\\nThe SpokenWeb Podcast\\n,\\n21 Nov 2022\\n\\nhttps://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-talking-with-sarah-cipes-about-feminist-audio-editing/\\n\\n \\n\\nShortCuts 4.3 “ShortCuts Live! Talking with Faith Paré about the Atwater Poetry Project Archives,” produced by Katherine McLeod,\\nThe SpokenWeb Podcast\\n, 20 February 2023\\nhttps://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-talking-with-faith-pare-about-the-atwater-poetry-project-archives/\\n\\n \\n\\nShortCuts 4.4 “ShortCuts Live! Talking with Ariel Kroon, Nick Beauchesne, and Chelsea Miya,” produced by Katherine McLeod,\\nThe SpokenWeb Podcast\\n, 20 March 2023\\n\\nhttps://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-talking-with-ariel-kroon-nick-beauchesne-and-chelsea-miya/\\n\\n \\n\\nShortCuts 4.5 “ShortCuts Live! Talking with Annie Murray,” produced by Katherine McLeod,\\nThe SpokenWeb Podcast\\n, 17 April 2023\\n\\nhttps://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-talking-with-annie-murray/\\n\\n \\n\\nShortCuts 4.6 “What’s that noise? Listening Queerly to the Ultimatum Festival Archives,” produced by Ella Jando-Saul,\\nThe SpokenWeb Podcast, \\n\\nhttps://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/whats-that-noise-listening-queerly-to-the-ultimatum-festival-archives/\\n\\n \"}]"],"_version_":1853670549818966016,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["Welcome to Season 5 of ShortCuts. \n\nShortCuts started out on the podcast feed as a ‘minisode’ during our first season and it soon took on a life of its own. ShortCuts host and producer Katherine McLeod would take you on a deep dive into the SpokenWeb archives through a short ‘cut’ of audio. What did it feel like to hear archival audio? And how could we carefully unarchive its sound? These questions evolved into conversations, and thus emerged ShortCuts, Live! Last season featured Katherine’s conversations with Sarah Cipes, Faith Paré, Chelsea Miya, Nick Beaschesne, Ariel Kroon, and Annie Murray, along with a special episode produced by Ella Jando-Saul. And, this season, ShortCuts Live continues. It will be even more ‘live’ and in-person season than ever before, but before we go there, we do what we always do to start a new season. We perform what\nShortCuts\nsounds like\nin sound.\nListen to this episode, listen to past episodes, and then stay tuned for our new season on\nThe SpokenWeb Podcast\nfeed. \n\n(0:00) \nShortCuts\nTheme Music\n[Soft piano music interspersed with electronic sound begins]\n(00:01)\nKatherine McLeod\nWelcome to\nShortCuts\n. On\nShortCuts\n. We listen closely and carefully to a short ‘cut’ [scissor sound] or ‘cuts’ [scissor sound] from the archives.\nShortCuts\nbegan in season one of the\nSpokenWeb\npodcast. It started out as what we called a minisode,  a short episode to engage with interesting clips from the audio archives that caught my attention as a producer and curator. \n\nBut this soon evolved. Episodes became a way to really dwell in the sound, to listen again – and again ­– to audio clips from the archives, as a place to practice a feminist listening in the archives and think about what we are listening to, how we are listening to it, and what it feels like to listen.\nShortCuts\nhas evolved onto the page. I’ve written about the first seasons of\nShortCuts\nas feminist placemaking through podcasting in a forthcoming chapter, co-written with Hannah McGregor and Stacey Copeland. Last year’s trailer ended up transforming into a short forum contribution to English Studies in Canada, published earlier this year. That piece is called “Archival Listening.”\n\nTalking about what it feels like to listen to audio from the archives evolved into wanting to talk with other people about what it feels like to hear these sounds. \n\n[\nShortCuts\ntheme music fades] Thus\nShortCuts\nevolved into what was last season, ShortCuts Live! Conversations with\nSpokenWeb\nresearchers about a short ‘cut’ of audio from the archives. This season, we continue\nShortCuts\nLive and aim to be even more live and on-site than\nShortCuts\nhas ever been before. But first, I want to do what we always do to start a new season of\nShortCuts\n, and that is to dive into its own archives of last season. \n\n[\nShortCuts\ntheme music swells]\n\nBecause me telling you the story of\nShortCuts\nevolving is one way of explaining what it does. But what if we ask, what does\nShortCuts\ndo in sound? In the following mix, you’ll hear the voices of Sarah Sipes, Faith Pare, Chelsea Mia, Nick Beauchesne, Ariel Kroon, and Annie Murray, along with Ella Jando-Saul from the special episode Ella made with Mathieu Aubin, Misha Solman, Sophia Magglioca, and Rowan Nancarrow. And of course, check the show notes after for the full story of all the archival sounds. [Theme music ends]\n(02:33)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.4\n…[fades in] do the same thing that I have done for the other ones that I did this week, which was – is – actually going to podcast voice to do the opening [Katherine laughs]. It feels like somehow you need headphones to go into podcast voice [Katherine laughs].\n(02:47)\nAriel Kroon, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.4\nYeah, put it on. It’s – part of the – part of the suit!\n(02:49)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.4\nExactly. [Katherine laughs]\n(02:51)\nAnnie Murray, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 \nSo what do you wanna talk about?\n(2:53)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5\nWell, [Katherine and Annie laugh] first, I’ll say, welcome to\nShortCuts\n.\n(03:00)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.3\n[\nShortCuts\ntheme music plays] Welcome to\nShortCuts\n. Welcome to\nShortCuts\n, this month on\nShortCuts\n, we’re here live on Zoom with the Atwater Poetry Project curator Faith Pare. Faith joins me for this conversation…[Theme music ends]\n(03:16)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 \n…We’re recording this\nShortCuts\nLive in 4th Space at Concordia University during the\nSpokenWeb\nSound Institute. I’m here with Sarah Cipes. Thanks so much for joining me, Sarah.\n(03:26)\nSarah Cipes, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2\nThanks so much for having me.\n(03:30)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.3 \nThis really is a\nShortCuts\nLive by the fact that my three-month-old daughter is also here with me, and for long time\nShortCuts\nlisteners you’ll remember that back in season two, the voice of a poet’s young daughter has already been heard on\nShortCuts\n.\n(03:41)\nAnnie Murray, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 \nKatherine has just handed me a tape called “Over 60 Minutes with Luba.” Luba is on the front. It was issued by Capital Records and EMI Canada 1987.\n(03:56)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5\nYou’ve been immersed in the EMI Collection at University of Calgary. What are you, what are you noticing? How does this speak to you as an, as an archival object?\n(04:05)\nAnnie Murray, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 \nWell, what’s interesting about this tape…\n(04:07)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.4 \nCould you tell me and listeners what we’re listening to?\n(04:12)\nChelsea Miya, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.4\nSo we’re, that was a clip from the Voiceprint episode, “Room and a Voice of One’s Own.”\n(04:17)\nFaith Paré, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.3 \nThe APP archives are interesting, I think for me as a former SpokenWeb RA, in that they’re all digital. The series started to be regularly recorded in 2010. This was also really firmly embraced by the library too, and thinking about the Atwater Library and Computer Center’s mandate…\n(04:38)\nElla Jando-Saul, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 \n[Sound effect of heart beat plays and fades] In 1985, Allan Lorde with help from a team of close friends, organized ultimatum, a literary festival that took […]\n(04:46)\nSophia Magglioca, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5\nYeah, the weird heartbeat noise is really interesting to me because I can’t tell if it’s intentional or not, and it’s doing really interesting things with the poet’s voice.\n(04:59)\nAriel Kroon, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5 \nThat was a clip from Joanne Coombs, and she came on as a guest. Uh, she was working as an editor for academic papers. I think maybe an academic journal at the time. And so she was really talking about her practice of feminist editing at the time, and we were so fascinated by what she had to say, because it struck us as very resonant and relevant to discussions that are all around us.\n(05:25)\nSarah Cipes, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 \nAnd so bringing that into audio was a really interesting idea for me because redaction, restriction, and censorship and all of these things that have a lot of negative feelings around them for researchers can actually be turned into positive things, I think, particularly within audio, that actually allow users to listen to tapes that they might otherwise be totally barred from, and so my desire was to create sound edits that allow the listener to hear the vast majority of, of the tape…\n(06:05)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2\nMm-hmm.\n(06:06)\nSarah Cipes, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 \n– while also protecting the privacy of those on the tape. Or even in this case, someone who’s mentioned who’s not there. \n(06:15)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 \nMm-hmm. Mm-hmm.\n(06:16)\nSarah Cipes, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.2 \nBut really a feminist edit could also be about amplifying voices that are not usually central to the microphone –\n(06:30)\nMisha Solomon, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.6 \n[Sound effect of heartbeat plays and ends] What I find really interesting about the mystery of the sound is that it’s a reminder of the missing information on these tapes. That these tapes are representative of performances that involved some visual aspect, and that aspect is missing entirely. And so when the sound changes, or disappears, one could imagine someone in an outrageous outfit playing a percussion instrument in the corner and producing that sound…\n(07:00)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5\n… and one particular song, that that song perhaps could, you know, appear at some point, or audibly in this –  \n(07:10)\nAnnie Murray, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5\nOr a clip.\n(07:11)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5\nA clip. Exactly. It would just a, just little-\n(07:13)\nAnnie Murray, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5\nMaybe the most dramatic part.\n(07:15)\n[Music builds to the chorus of “Everytime I See Your Picture I Cry”]\nSinger sings: \n\nEvery time I see your picture I cry \n\nAnd I learn to get over you\n\nOne more time because…\n(7:33)\nKatherine McLeod, archival audio from ShortCuts 4.5\nExactly. [Katherine laughs]. So, um, I think that’s, you know, a perfect note to, to end on. And I, I want to thank Annie Murray for joining me here on\nShortCuts\nLive in 4th SPACE at Concordia University. Thank you so much, Annie.\n(07:46)\nKatherine McLeod \n[ShortCuts\nmusic begins to play] You’ve been listening to\nShortCuts\n.\nShortCuts\nis released monthly as part of the\nSpokenWeb\npodcast. Feed. The\nSpokenWeb\nPodcast team is made up of supervising producer Maia Harris, sound designer, James Healy, transcriber Zoe Mix and co-host Hannah McGregor and me, Katherine McLeod. \nFind out more about the sounds that you heard on this month’s episode by checking the show notes or heading to spokenweb.ca and click on podcast. This episode of\nShortCuts\nwas produced by me, Katherine McLeod. Thanks for listening. [Theme music ends]\n \n\n"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9994","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 5.2, ShortCuts Live! A Magical Audio Tour with Jennifer Waits, 20 November 2023, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-a-magical-audio-tour-with-jennifer-waits/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2023],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/569ffe3e-7643-47e3-8dca-6e676f7bd9a3/audio/5ced2478-171e-40d6-b2b0-e59df3b49fba/default_tc.mp3?nocache\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-5-2-master.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:18:20\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"17,602,395 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"shortcuts-5-2-master\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-a-magical-audio-tour-with-jennifer-waits/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2023-11-20\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"ARCHIVAL AUDIO\\n\\nArchival audio excerpted from this episode of Radio Survivor:\\n\\nhttps://www.radiosurvivor.com/2015/11/podcast-22-were-all-moving-to-the-fm-dial-now/\\n\\nBlog post with photographs from Jennifer Waits’s tour of Radio K:\\n\\nhttps://www.radiosurvivor.com/2015/10/my-grand-tour-of-college-radio-station-radio-k/\\n\\nA past Radio Survivor episode featuring SpokenWeb:\\n\\nhttps://www.radiosurvivor.com/2021/02/podcast-284-spokenweb-and-literary-sound/\\n\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549820014592,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This ShortCuts presents the first of many conversations recorded at the University of Alberta as part of the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium. Recorded on site by SpokenWeb’s Kate Moffatt and Miranda Eastwood, the conversations often took place in spaces where the sonic environment of the symposium is audibly present. As always on ShortCuts, we begin with an audio clip from the archives, but this time the interviewees are the ones bringing an archival sound to the table. What will we hear? And where will these sounds take us? Join us for this ShortCuts Live in which a conversation with Jennifer Waits that takes us on a magical audio tour into the sounds of campus radio stations.\n\n(0:00)\tShortCuts Theme Music\t[Soft piano music interspersed with electronic sound begins]\n(0:04)\tKatherine McLeod\tWelcome to ShortCuts. This month we’re back with another ShortCuts Live! Talking with researchers in person and starting those conversations with a short ‘cut’ of audio. Many of these conversations were recorded on site at the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium held at the University of Alberta. So, what will we hear and who will we talk with? Stay tuned for this season – and, to start us off, this episode is a conversation with Jennifer Waits. Yes, that is the Jennifer Waits of Radio Survivor, the podcast that explores the future of community radio and college radio, low-power FM and public access TV, along with podcasting and internet radio – and she often explores that future by diving into the past, and in fact the clip that Jennifer plays for us is from one of her tours of a college radio station.\nLet’s listen in as SpokenWeb Podcast’s Kate Moffatt and Miranda Eastwood talk with Jennifer in a recording booth at the University of Alberta. Here is Shortcuts Live. [Theme music fades]\n(1:19)\tKate Moffat\tPerfect. And it’s recording. Okay. I’m just gonna move this a little closer so I’m not ….Alright, so, hello and welcome to Shortcuts Live, recorded at the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium at the University of Alberta. I am sitting here, my name is Kate Moffatt and I am the supervising producer for the SpokenWeb Podcast, stepping in for our usual intrepid host, Katherine McLeod, and I’m sitting here with Jennifer Waits, who we are so excited to talk to today. Jennifer, would you mind just introducing yourself for us?\n(1:50)\tJennifer Waits\tYeah, thanks so much for having me. I am Jennifer Waits and I’m one of the co-founders of Radio Survivor, which is a website and podcast and syndicated radio show about the culture of radio, audio, sound. Um, so I’ve written pieces there as well as these audio productions. And, um, I’m also a long time college radio DJ, write about radio culture and other spaces besides radio survivor and obsessively tour radio stations. [Kate laughs]\n(2:23)\tKate Moffat\tThat’s fantastic. We’re so excited to chat today, so we’re gonna listen to something together and I don’t know, would you like to say something about it before we start?\n(2:34)\tJennifer Waits\tYeah. So, I decided to bring– it’s an excerpt of the Radio Survivor show. I think at this point it was just a podcast and not a syndicated radio show. It’s from October, 2015. And in part of this episode I shared one of my radio station tours where I had recorded some audio. So, um, I just thought that would be fun to share.\nAt this point I have written up tours to just over 170 radio stations. So, I mean, really an obsession. I started in 2008 and I don’t always make audio, but when we started doing the Radio Survivor podcast, I started recording some audio and occasionally use that on the show.\n[Sound effect of old tape player starting]\nWe’re gonna hear an excerpt from my tour of Radio K at University of Minnesota, KUOM. And this was recorded in October, 2015.\n[Sound effect of tape player stopping and starting]\n(3:40)\tArchival audio of Jennifer Waits from Radio Survivor\t[fade in]…tour guide. He’s a junior named Paul Benson, and he had all the time in the world on a Friday afternoon to show me around the station. So, for me, that’s like my dream tour because I could stay at a radio station for hours on end and he didn’t have anywhere to go and he enjoyed exploring things at the station he’d never seen before with me. So it was an incredible tour, super fun. I saw every nook and cranny.\nI saw places that aren’t normally on tours when they tour people around. The station itself occupies pretty much a whole floor of this building on campus called the Rerig Center. And I was kind of blown away by how massive their space is. They’ve got lots of different studios. All the different spaces seem to be behind these closed doors, so you don’t really know what there is until you open the door. And then there’s something magical behind it. Either it’s a studio or a production room. They’ve got a large live studio where they have live bands play.\nIt’s pretty much like a professional recording studio. And it even had an area sectioned off to put drums, which I’ve never seen before at a radio station where, you know, they’re even thinking about putting drums in a separate space so you don’t have sounds spilling over. [Soft piano music fades in] Um, and that room also had a disco ball that was cool. And a piano too. [Piano music fades out] And then one of my favorites, they had all these hidden closets that were full of music. So.\n(5:20)\tArchival audio of Jennifer Waits from Radio Survivor\tSo what exactly is this room that we’re in?\n(5:23)\tArchival audio of Paul Benson from Radio Survivor \tThis is just –\nIt looks like just a dilapidated vinyl. Edgar Winter. I’m finding all of the vinyl of songs that we’re playing for our Halloween show and marching band.\n(5:37)\tArchival audio of Jennifer Waits from Radio Survivor \tSo do you come in here and, you know, poke around?\n(5:40)\tArchival audio of Paul Benson from Radio Survivor \tThis is one of the first times I’ve actually been in here just because I don’t, I can’t steal any of them or upload them to my computer. So I just like, I guess I just haven’t explored all the weird vinyl that we have.\n(5:55)\tArchival audio of Jennifer Waits from Radio Survivor\tAre you guys able to play 78’s? Do you have a 78 needle?\n(5:59)\tArchival audio of Paul Benson from Radio Survivor\tOh God. You know, I don’t, I don’t know.\n(6:03)\tArchival audio of Jennifer Waits from Radio Survivor\tBecause look, this is probably a 78, super fragile.\n(6:06)\tArchival audio of Paul Benson from Radio Survivor\tHow do we know? It’s just sound effects. Oh my God. This is airplanes, continuous airplanes.\n(6:15)\tArchival audio of Jennifer Waits from Radio Survivor\tThis is 13 army planes in formation.\n(6:19)\tArchival audio of Paul Benson from Radio Survivor \tThis is, we’re out of formation. It sounds different.\n(6:22)\tArchival audio of Jennifer Waits from Radio Survivor\tAnd then, in that same closet there were a bunch of 1970s, like very mainstream K Tel records. So these collections of mainstream hits from the seventies and a Jimmy Swaggart record and then like some really cool punk seven inches, like all in the same closet.\n[Sound effect of tape stopping]\n(6:40)\tKate Moffatt\tThank you so much. That was a very joyful thing to listen to, somehow. [Kate laughs] I feel like I was trying really hard not to laugh throughout it. That was, that was so great. Please. Yeah. What were we just listening to?\n(6:53)\tJennifer Waits\tIt is for me too. So, we’re touring Radio K at the University of Minnesota. And this student, Paul Benson, you know, like I mentioned at the beginning, I was in the station with him for about three hours on I think a Friday night, and you know, often I’m staying like longer than people want me [Kate and Jennifer laugh].\nBut he was so down, and I have such fond memories of this and I’m so glad I have this audio record of it because, yeah, every time… I was excited to play it again because it brings back that joyful feeling that I had and is also just, you know, it’s sort of an artistic representation of what these tours are like for me.\nLike the tours serve a lot of different purposes.  You know, I’m trying to document college radio culture. I feel like I’m preserving these stories and what stations are like at a particular point in time. And now this is essentially history, you know, ’cause this was 2015 and my mind is traveling to places. Like I wonder if —like, there were some really old—the records we were talking about, the sound effect records of planes in formation. There were a ton of ’em. And, and these were in these sort of, if I remember correctly, they were in green envelopes, you know, kind of like they were military. And, and so I, at the time I wondered where these came from and, you know, now I wonder if they’re still there. And Radio K has a very, or radio at University of Minnesota has a very long history going back to the twenties.\nSo, you know, they could have records that have just been in that library for a very long time. So I was pretty excited. I think it was the same tour where we also saw some vapor wave cassettes. So it was all over the map. And that was my tour guide playing the piano in that live room that we heard.\n(8:52)\tKate Moffatt\tOh wow. I thought it was cool that there was almost this parallel between the way that you guys were interacting with the boxes and the way that you described the shape of the radio station itself, where you were like, there’s all these doors sub in boxes. You’re like, every time you open it, you don’t know what’s gonna be in there, sub in boxes. Right? Like, you know, and then you open it and there’s something magical. Like it was cool that I, that there was like an echo there almost of the two.\n(9:19)\tJennifer Waits\tYeah. And there were even cages in one part. It was for what sort of a storage room. So there were some of these metal cages that had things behind it and there was a Radio K costume, and he put it on. Yeah, and he put it on for me it was almost like it had matching gloves. It was sort of a stuffed [Jennifer laughs] like a, not a stuffy, but, yeah, I mean it’s a trip and in the room with the cages that there was some really historic material in that room too.\nI mean it’s, yeah, it’s like a fever dream actually this whole tour. And it’s in this sort of brutalist building and it’s unbelievable. I can’t believe how much space they have in the first place. And then the fact that they have all this interesting material there and that he was excited, you know, to go on this journey was, was pretty amazing.\n(10:17)\tKate Moffatt\tTo get to spend that much time in there and, and looking at it. I kind of have two questions here. And one is like, I’d love for you to tell us more about like if this audio kind of also, I don’t know, relates to or informs your research that you do kind of more generally. And also maybe in a connected sort of way, the role of listening in your research as well.\n(10:38)\tJennifer Waits\tYeah. So I just started visiting stations again after, you know, the pandemic. So, you know, starting in fall 2022, I started visiting again, and I felt so rusty I’d kind of forgotten about all the things I’m trying to capture. And, and on this recording you can hear my camera snapping so-\n(10:58)\tKate Moffatt\tWhich I loved, by the way.\n(10:59)\tJennifer Waits\tYeah! So, it’s, you know, I take a ton of photos and then occasionally I’m recording audio. Sometimes I sit down and record a more formal interview. But sometimes like this time, you know, the microphone is kind of in the middle somewhere so you can hear me sort of in the distance at times because we’re not mic’d like we’re doing a, you know, professional recording. [Kate laughs]\nAnd so it’s a struggle for me because I’m trying to listen to and capture so much I’m trying to capture, you know, all the things I’m seeing visually. And then as you can tell from this, there was so much in the ambient, you know, environment of this place that was interesting. Like the spontaneous piano playing on the tour. And, I don’t think I captured this with audio, but at one point some other, I was at a college radio conference and there was an official tour of Radio K and at one point that official tour came into the record library where we were.\nAnd so it’s like we intersected for a moment. [Kate laughs] But I was on my own private, you know – magical tour. So, yeah, it’s a challenge actually for me to capture everything and, um, and I’m trying to figure out if there’s a better structure. So I think on these tours that I’ve been taking just in this past academic year, I’m trying to set aside like a space where, alright, why don’t we do an interview first where we’re seated and I’m not stressing about taking photos, and then, and then walk around a little bit.\n(12:37)\tKate Moffatt\tI’m so interested too. And you being like, kind of hyper aware of what you’re missing, even as you’re trying to capture it all. Like it’s, it’s really the impossibility of capturing everything, right? It’s kind of part of why the archives are still sitting there the way that they are. Right? That’s just the wealth of material.\n(12:55)\tJennifer Waits\tI’m missing so much. And then I’m, you know, I fear that when I get home and I’m sitting down to write my story that I haven’t taken the photo that I want to illustrate it, and I use a lot of photos, but, you know, sometimes I come back, I’m like, oh, I wish I’d taken this particular photo.\nOr more of this ’cause this one isn’t quite right. And I try to take photos of the people that I’m interviewing too. You know, ’cause a lot of, a lot of what college radio is about is the community and the people. And you know, I’ve started enjoying doing these portraits of people in the studio – like maybe grab your favorite record or a weird record or, you know, where do you wanna stand? And so I try to also compose some of these photos to capture the personalities.\n(13:47)\tKate Moffatt\tIt’s so, I feel like everything you’re saying is really making me think about the different ways, both literally and metaphorically that we listen to the archive.\nI think as like, a final question, but like, sort of like to kind of turn us in a bit of a, we’re obviously this is live, we’re at the conference and we just actually listened to the last, the last plenary panel of the symposium. I’d love to know what you’re listening to now. Either, you know, either in your research or just kind of like more generally, would love to hear, you know, what, what have you, what you’ve been listening to.\n(14:20)\tJennifer Waits\tOh, I mean, it’s interesting. My teenage my teenage child, you know, listens to music all the time and talks about how, you know, he doesn’t notice me listening to music, you know, and I think increasingly I’m listening to the world around me rather than musical sounds. Although I do college radio, so for me, like that’s the time when I’m actively doing my music listening is during my radio show every week. And it’s incredibly healing. [Jennifer laughs]\nYou know, I love that immersion. And so for me it’s that college radio space is when I’m immersing in those sounds. And, I’ve been doing college radio for a really long time and what I listen to changes from year to year and, you know, I’ve gotten increasingly into more experimental sounds. I guess, you know, also things like sound art and transmission arts. So, you know, there’ve been talks at the conference and also installations at the conference that touch on this, like the intersection between, you know, things that are intermedia that involve visual components as well as audio components. So, you know, things that are, maybe challenging and harder to understand that things like that are kind of capturing my ears  more so than maybe the familiar [Jennifer laughs] The familiar music that we hear.\n(15:54)\tKate Moffatt\tYeah, wonderful. Oh, that’s fantastic. I think this has been such a neat way to think about —I agree, I’ve been listening to this experimental stuff that we’ve been listening to this week has just been so interesting, especially in that I feel like I’m kind of physically, I keep describing it as bathing. I feel like I’m bathing in the sound and it’s because it feels very embodied somehow, which is just making me think back to that clip you played and how embodied that that sounded and the fact that I could, I could hear you moving through the space. I could hear him moving through the space. I could hear you opening boxes, taking pictures.\n(16:20)\tJennifer Waits\tYeah. I mean, it’s all about the space. And I think that’s what was challenging for a lot of people during the pandemic, you know, who work in college radio or community radio, that we weren’t in our spaces and a lot of us were, you know, trying to figure out how to do radio from home. And, I think this academic year, people are trying to get back to that sense of community and being back in our spaces and connecting on that level too, because that’s where a lot of the creativity happens is going through the stacks and, you know, finding the records that you don’t know about or –– or finding unexpected things, rather than, I mean, this is the thing about looking for music online. You kind of find what you’re looking for rather than being surprised a lot of the time.\n(17:09)\tKate Moffatt\tLike browsing the stacks in the library versus buying an ebook.\n(17:12)\tJennifer Waits\tExactly. Yeah.\nKate Moffatt\tI think that’s a beautiful place to stop if you’re, if you’re happy to, if you’re happy to stop there. Thank you so much, Jennifer, for joining us.\n[ShortCuts Theme music fades in]\nThis has been so much fun. That just, I’m still thinking about that camera click and the piano music that was played in there. It’s just, that was just fantastic. Thank you so much for bringing that along.\n(17:32)\tJennifer Waits\tOh, thank you. I’m glad that you enjoyed it.\n(17:38)\tKatherine McLeod\tYou’ve been listening to ShortCuts. That was a ShortCuts Live conversation with Jennifer Waits recorded in May 2023 at the SpokenWeb Symposium at the University of Alberta. Thanks to Kate Moffatt and Miranda Eastwood for making that interview happen. And thanks to our current supervising producer Maia Harris for the help in re-listening to that interview together. The SpokenWeb Podcast’s sound designer is James Healey and transcription is done by Zoe Mix. My name is Katherine McLeod and, as always, thanks for listening.\n[Theme music ends]\n \n"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9995","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 5.3, ShortCuts Live! Listening to Wide-Screen Radio with Brian Fauteux, 18 March 2024, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-listening-to-wide-screen-radio-with-brian-fauteux/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2024],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/ee46116d-d019-4f1d-abad-4f2d80ec7d83/audio/c0dedf34-0b8f-4f5f-bb09-eca79069ca45/default_tc.mp3?nocache\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"v1-shortcuts-5-3.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:15:02\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"14,433,010 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"v1-shortcuts-5-3\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-listening-to-wide-screen-radio-with-brian-fauteux/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2024-03-18\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"Fauteux, Brian. Music in Range: The Culture of Canadian Campus Radio. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2015.\\n\\ndeWaard, Andrew, Fauteux, Brian, and Selman, Brianne. “Independent Canadian Music in the Streaming Age: The Sound from above (Critical Political Economy) and below (Ethnography of Musicians).” Popular Music and Society 45.3 (2022): 251 – 278. [open access]\\n\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549821063168,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This ShortCuts presents one of the ShortCuts Live! conversations recorded at the University of Alberta as part of the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium. Recorded on site by SpokenWeb’s Kate Moffatt and Miranda Eastwood, the conversations often took place in spaces where the sonic environment of the symposium is audibly present. As always on ShortCuts, we begin with an audio clip from the archives, but this time the interviewees are the ones bringing an archival sound to the table. What will we hear? And where will these sounds take us?\n\n(00:03)\tShortCuts Theme Music\t[Soft piano music interspersed with electronic sound begins]\n(00:16)\tMiranda Eastwood (Recording)\tI’m like, maybe I should get sound effects from [overlap]\nThis is fun. Like maybe footsteps or something. Get whatever the name of this building is and like where we are located since we will be hearing the space and people will naturally –\n(00:17)\tKate Moffatt\tIs it the old arts building?\n(00:23)\tBrian Fauteux\tYeah, that’s kind of the Arts and Convocation Hall. But because we have a fine arts building, a lot of people call this the old arts building.\n(00:27)\tKate Moffatt\tOkay. [laughs] I might let you say that, actually. [laughs]\n(00:46)\tKatherine McLeod\t[Voiceover] Welcome to Shortcuts. This month, we’re back with another shortcut live, talking with researchers in person and starting those conversations with a short-cut of audio. Many of these conversations were recorded on-site at the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium held at the University of Alberta.\n(01:08)\tKate Moffatt\t[Back to audio recorded on-site.] Uh, hello and welcome to Shortcuts Live. We are live at the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium at the University of Alberta. My name is Kate Moffitt, and I am the supervising producer for the SpokenWeb Podcast. Stepping in for our usual host and producer, Katherine McLeod. I’m sitting here with Brian Fauteux today.\n(01:16)\tBrian Fauteux\tYeah. My name is Brian Fauteux. I’m an associate professor of Popular Music and Media Studies here at the University of Alberta, and I work in this building.\n(01:24)\tKate Moffatt\tAmazing. Yeah. That echo that the listeners, that you’re hearing right now. It is because we are sitting in the arts and convocation hall building –\n(01:49)\tBrian Fauteux\tIn the lobby, just outside Convocation Hall where we have a big old pipe organ, and we have music that takes place and sometimes I teach, back in the day, I used to teach, not that long ago, [Kate laughs], a couple years ago, I would teach big intro to popular music classes there before the upper balcony was deemed unsafe. So I’ve been moved elsewhere, and I think they want to renovate it and make it a little bit more “state of the art” in there. It’s very beautiful.\n(01:56)\tKate Moffatt\tInteresting. It is. It’s absolutely stunning. Okay, amazing. Well, we’re gonna listen to something. Do you wanna play that for us?\n(01:57)\tBrian Fauteux\tSure. Let’s play.\n(03:11)\tAudio Recording\t[Distorted Audio Of Paul Mccartney’s mid-nineties radio show called “Oobu Joobu” plays in the background.]\n(03:12)\tBrian Fauteux\t[Audio ends.] That’s probably enough.\n(03:23)\tKate Moffatt\tIncredible [Brian laughs]. Thank you so much. Yeah. Miranda is also here, and we’re both sitting here and our heads just started [laughs].\nPlease tell us what we just listened to.\n(04:25)\tBrian Fauteux\tThis is a radio program that Paul McCartney did in the mid-nineties called “Oobu Joobu.” That was kind of a weird sort of experimental radio program that, I think aired on an American network for about 15 shows. And it’s a collection of, as you heard, different songs, audio clips.\nI think he was sort of playing around on a guitar there as well as he introduced it. And I think in 97 parts of this, 1997, parts of this was packaged with his “Flaming Pie” CD release. I think it mainly circulates as sort of bootlegs now or as this recorded version that was kind of sold at Best Buy. It was like a compendium of some of the shows, but I don’t know if the full complete package has ever resurfaced. But what I find interesting about it is it sometimes airs on the Beatles channel on Sirius XM Radio, which is sort of subscriber-based radio.\n(05:16)\tBrian Fauteux\tAnd it’s something I’ve been researching for the last little while, and I’m writing a book on now, and I’ve kind of been drawn to these places where celebrity clash with kind of weirdness and experimentation, but in a very kind of gated commercial subscription setting.\nSo it’s like people kind of paying for access to a radio service that kind of digs around and finds these oddities and packages them on these channels that are all about bands like “The Beatles” or “Tom Petty” or “Bruce Springsteen.” I also like in this clip, and the reason I chose this one, it was probably hard to hear from the laptop into the recorder, but early on, it emphasizes that it’s widescreen radio. And I think that the development of satellite radio kind of piggybacks on satellite television.\n(05:18)\tKate Moffatt\tI was gonna ask, widescreen TVs [laughs].\n(05:25)\tBrian Fauteux\tExactly. So it’s this idea of, we aren’t just your, you know, grandpa’s old radio. This is sort of –\n(05:25)\tKate Moffatt\tOh wow [laughs].\n(05:51)\tBrian Fauteux\tYou know what I mean? It’s like; it’s trying to introduce radio as being new, even though it’s still embedded in longermhistories of institutions like commercial radio broadcasting has used satellites for long periods of time. So it gives it a sheen of newness. Some things are kind of new about it, but I think it’s an interesting way of thinking or complicating ideas around new media, particularly around the turn of the millennium.\n(06:30)\tKate Moffatt\tWell, I’m really fascinated by how, I would love to talk about the listening, like the actual sound, sound of what we just listened to, ’cause that was so delightful.\nThe first thing I thought was mid-nineties television that I grew up with. It was kind of like the sound that I got from that.\nBut I’m really, I have to ask, as like a book historian myself, about the materiality that you’re kind of engaging with as you’re following its trajectory and thinking about how people are engaging with it.\nI don’t know. Can you speak to that at all? Thinking about the ways in which it’s becoming available, or how, I guess literally, the material of the media is informing it.\nIsn’t there a famous quote about that? The media is the –\n(06:30)\tBrian Fauteux\tMessage.\n(06:33)\tKate Moffatt\tYeah. That’s the one [laughs].\n(07:53)\tBrian Fauteux\tI mean, to even talk about McLuhan a little bit too, I think, thinking through about finding these oddities or these sonic traces of satellite broadcasting from the earlier days and this isn’t being played earlier. The Beatles channel comes in, I think, around 2015, if I’m not mistaken, but it’s very limited when something airs. Some of it is archived, some of it is kept online for maybe four weeks.\nYou can access it on demand, but then it goes away, or it’s kept in this place, this company, this publicly traded, massive media conglomerate now SiriusXM is owned by Liberty Media, which has stakes in like Live Nation and Ticketmaster and all these things. So researching that is different from some of my work on campus radio history where you can track stuff down. It’s still kind of scattered, but people are willing to give it to you. And now they’re not.\nSo, McLuhan also writes a bit about acoustic space and cyberspace coming together and how it’s like all around and you sort of dig around and look for these things. So that’s kind of where I end up finding a lot of this stuff is through spending time on the internet and seeing who’s put something somewhere online that you can listen to.\n(08:26)\tKate Moffatt\tRight. I was gonna ask next about listening. The role of listening in both, I guess, how you were finding it and listening to it, but also how you see this kind of… not elite, that’s not the right word.\nExclusive, exclusivity that’s applied to something that was experimental and odd. Yeah, I don’t know. Something about the, yeah I guess just a bigger kind of broader question about the role of listening in the work that you’re doing and what that, how that interacts with what you, what you do and how you do it.\n(09:36)\tBrian Fauteux\tThat’s a good question because part of what I’m looking at is the reasons why media institutions develop in the ways they do. And you can read annual reports and a lot of it is going through tons of trade press stuff over the years and seeing who’s talking about these companies as they develop. But then you wanna find stuff to listen to as well. And it’s not all perfectly available.\nEven most research paths people take, that’s never the case. But part of it ends up being, like listening a lot of the time to different satellite stations, satellite radio stations, or channels.\nThere’s only one station now I guess, but they have a variety of channels. And then trying to find things like this and thinking about is this available elsewhere? And in the cases where it’s maybe the work of a major celebrity, like I’ve written a bit on Bob Dylan’s theme time radio hour, which is kind of like this, where it’s, you know, somebody using their time on the radio who has like the star power but wants to use that time to showcase all these old quote unquote forgotten songs or songs that haven’t really entered the canon, so to speak, but have been massively influential.\n(10:16)\tBrian Fauteux\tThat’s a big part of what that radio, that radio show is doing. When you have people like that, you do have hardcore fans, too, who have recorded all of this and put it online. So stuff like that you can find. And then when you find that, I just listen to as much of it as I can. So there were about a hundred and so a hundred plus episodes of theme time, radio hour, and for, you know, a month or so, I just listened to every single episode to see what is not only what is he playing but how is he talking about it? What’s he introducing, what’s it like, and how does his voice seem to connect with these subscription radio listeners? And, you know, really spending time with the stuff I can find.\n(10:35)\tKate Moffatt\tAnd do you almost get a sense of his listening?\nIn terms of thinking about what they’re finding and putting together, and there’s a curatorial aspect to it.\nDo you kind of start to get a sense you can start to become familiar with yourself?\nOh, I bet so and so, put this one together.\n(11:18)\tBrian Fauteux\tYou also, I mean, you kind of become like held captive slash hostage to this sort of weird way of doing radio. Like, especially with the Dylan voice, and I’m gonna play a bit of it on the Friday morning radio panel that we’re doing as part of the SpokenWeb Institute.\nBut you do get a sense of his own relationship to these songs. But then, through digging a little bit as well, you find that he’s crafted as the curator or the person who has all these shows. It turns out it was a major TV producer responsible for massive commercial television productions. Oh, wow. Over the years, that has the music collection that Dylan’s kind of borrowing from. So you have these other connections –\n(11:21)\tKate Moffatt\tThere’s layers of curations.\n(12:07)\tBrian Fauteux\tYeah, there’s layers, totally.\nThat they’re working in. And he makes it sound like he’s, you know, he constructs this whole world where he is broadcasting out of this historical Abernathy building, but really he does a lot of it on tour and from his house and, you know, it creates this radio world, but it is kind of an entryway into a different side of these massive celebrities and their personalities that people will pay for.\nAnd these satellite radio companies kind of know that. So, you know, know, part of what I’m interested in is before we even get to your Spotifys and Apple musics, this radio company was kind of setting the stage for that idea of exclusivity or, you know, giving big name performers, big talent contracts to then entice subscribers to say, I’m gonna pay like $16 or $20 a month to have access to this stuff –\n(12:12)\tKate Moffatt\tWhich we’re now so familiar with. Like, it’s just so all the time that’s everything.\n(12:15)\tBrian Fauteux\tEverything’s a subscription.\n(12:33)\tKate Moffatt\tWow. Yeah. Wild. Okay. Well I think one last question which is, I’d love to know what you’re listening to now. Like you know, either in your research currently, like maybe something like this, but anything else that’s fun or even just more generally, like what are you listening to right now that really excites you?\n(13:10)\tBrian Fauteux\tSure. I am listening to a lot of music from around the early two thousands when Sirius XM came out for the purpose of this research, but also kind of unrelated but also sort of related to this.\nA colleague of mine and myself just started a campus radio show here. So every week we’re kind of listening a lot to a radio show based on a theme or a topic each week. So I’m kind of constantly thinking about what would be good to put on this week’s show. And a lot of that is Canadian. We have, you know, Canadian content regulations and these sorts of things. So that’s been a lot of fun and that, I know that’s not really answering anything specific, but –\n(13:11)\tKate Moffatt\tNo, I think that’s great actually [laughs].\n(13:41)\tBrian Fauteux\tAnd then, at the same time I’m among the jury for the Polaris Music Prize here in Canada. And the long list voting for that just opened. So I’m just listening to a ton of Canadian music right now that’s been recommended on Google Group listserv. Things that I haven’t listened to. A new album that I quite like a lot out of Edmonton is by a band called Home Front, and that’s been an album I’ve been playing a lot to give sort of one precise thing.\n(13:52)\tKate Moffatt\tI’m actually really curious, you were talking about the campus radio stuff that you’re doing. Do you feel like a little bit like you’re kind of doing the stuff that you research? Like are you Yeah, for sure. You’re taking that curatorial role almost –\n(14:16)\tBrian Fauteux\tA little bit like that, but also before this I wrote a book on campus radio and stepped back from, like when I was an undergrad, I did a little bit of, of campus radio production work, but then when I was researching it, I stepped back and wanted to have more of an arm’s length relationship to it. And I’ve been meeting since I’ve, I moved here and came here to get back into it.\nAnd I kind of just took, you know, another person to be here too and be like, let’s do it together. And that it makes it more social and more fun. And it has been a lot of fun.\n(14:26)\tKate Moffatt\tFantastic connection to the conversation we just had with Jennifer. Waits. Jennifer was talking about how important community is to campus radio, that it’s so inherent to kind of getting it going and keeping it going–\n(14:34)\tBrian Fauteux\tYeah. We were both just on a panel in Washington DC a few days ago talking about campus college radio. Incredible. So we, we have a lot of overlaps in what we are interested in.\n(14:34)\tMusic\t[Music begins playing in the background].\n(14:40)\tKate Moffatt\tThat’s so fantastic. Okay. Was there anything else that you wanted to share? Should we call it there?\n(14:41)\tBrian Fauteux\tThat sounds good.\n(14:50)\tKate Moffatt\tOkay. Thank you so much for sitting down and chatting with us at the end of a very long day and a very long couple of days.\nBut this was just such a fun way for us to wrap this day up.\n(14:50)\tBrian Fauteux\tThat’s great. Thank you for having me.\n(14:52)\tKate Moffatt\tAmazing. Thanks.\n(14:52)\tMusic\t[Music ends]."],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9996","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 5.4, Re-Listening to Improvisation in the Archives, 24 April 2024, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/re-listening-to-improvisation-in-the-archives/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2024],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/3507e689-cef7-4ff3-9c42-9593e0987fdd/audio/cf7c9da1-1404-41d3-9a60-11b4f653287d/default_tc.mp3?nocache\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"master-v1-shortcuts-april-23.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:07:02\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"6,753,010 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"master-v1-shortcuts-april-23\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/re-listening-to-improvisation-in-the-archives/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2024-04-24\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[]"],"_version_":1853670549822111744,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["As April is the month of poetry, we’ve taken a pause in this year’s ShortCuts Live conversations to listen back to one of the first episodes of ShortCuts, “ShortCuts 1.2 / Audio of the Month: Improvising at a Poetry Reading.”\n\nIn the archival clip played in this episode, we hear Maxine Gadd pausing during a reading with Andreas Schroeder. She asks the host Richard Sommer if he would like to improvise with her for the poem, “Shore Animals.”\n\nListening now, we can ask: what does it feel like for archival listeners to encounter a moment of improvisation? It is a truly memorable moment of listening and worth returning to now in this fifth season of ShortCuts.\n\n00:00\tKatherine McLeod\tWelcome to ShortCuts.\n00:04\tTheme music\t[Electronic music plays]\n00:07\tKatherine McLeod\tThis month, it is April, the month of poetry, and I thought that we’d take a pause in this season’s ShortCuts Live conversations to listen back to an early episode of ShortCuts – to hear an early version of ShortCuts: thinking about what means to be an archival listener.\n00:28\tKatherine McLeod\tBy the way, this episode is such an early episode of ShortCuts that I hadn’t even come up with the name “ShortCuts” yet.\nYou’ll hear me refer to it at one point as “Audio of the Month,” that was what I was calling it in that first season.\n00:43\tTheme music\t[Theme music continues]\n00:45\tKatherine McLeod\tWhat was the archival clip of this episode? Well, you’ll hear Maxine Gadd pausing during a reading with Andreas Schroeder to ask–\n00:55\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tDo you want to try improvising?–\n00:58\tKatherine McLeod\tAfter reading for about 45 minutes, Maxine Gad invited the host of the evening, Richard Sommer, to improvise on the flute.\n01:05\tRecording\tI gotta find it first –\n01:09\tKatherine McLeod\tListening now, we can ask, what does it feel like for archival listeners to encounter a moment of improvisation? Improvisation is so rooted in the experience of being there. So, what does it feel like to hear improvisation again? To hear it in the archives and even in this replaying?\n01:31\tKatherine McLeod\tWell, considering these questions, we can also listen to the extent to which we can hear the audience’s excitement for this spontaneous moment amid the reading and Gadd’s invitation for the flute to listen.\n01:45\tSound Effect\t[Sound of pressing play on a tape player]\n01:50\tKatherine McLeod\tLet’s listen now together to Shortcuts 1.2,\nAudio of the Month: “Improvising at a poetry reading.”\n02:05\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tYeah. It’s just going to be some sounds [inaudible].\n02:10\tKatherine McLeod [from ShortCuts 1.2]\tIn this “Audio of the Month,” we’re travelling back to February 1972, when poets Maxine Gad and Andreas Schroeder read in Montreal. They read at Sir George Williams University, or what is now Concordia.\nThey read on February 18th in the Hall Building in room H651. The reading started at 9 pm.\nYes, readings started late and went on for a long time. After reading for about 45 minutes, Maxine Gad invited the host of the evening, Richard Sommer, to improvise on the flute. He improvised along with her, reading the poem Shore Animals. Before starting to improvise, we can hear a negotiation between Gad and Sommer about what to read and how to perform together. A process that is its own audible improvisation.\n03:02\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tOh, here it is.\nNow, how it goes, you have to keep quiet until…\n[Random Flute Notes]\nSee now,  [laughs] he’s never done this one before.\n03:15\tRichard Sommer, Audio Recording\tWhat, what, yeah, what do you want me to do then?\n03:18\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tOkay, this is called “Shore Animals.”\nIt’s a speech piece with a flute, and the flute has to listen. And it can speak, too.\n03:30\tKatherine McLeod [from ShortCuts 1.2]\tThe audio clip that you’ll hear includes the first two minutes of a six-minute improvisation. Their improvisation is a singular moment when an audience member, in this case Richard Sommer, formally performs in the Sir George Williams poetry series. At the same time, this recording reminds listeners that the audience is always present, ready to improvise, interject, and even interrupt. And that the audience is also what we are listening to as archival listeners.\n04:03\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tThe flute, I think it’s over there.\nFor fun.\nThe same message?\nI’m asking; Richard’s going to make some noise with my flute.\n04:19\tRichard Sommer, Audio Recording\tI’ll make some noise if you give me a microphone.\n04:21\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tOkay. Which one you want? Let’s share it. Is–\n04:25\tRichard Sommer, Audio Recording\tIt doesn’t make any difference.\n04:26\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tIt goes with the poem [inaudible].\n04:28\tRichard Sommer, Audio Recording\tHow’d you do that?\n04:29\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tWhat?\n04:31\tRichard Sommer, Audio Recording\tThis, this knot.\n04:32\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tI’ve tied myself in there.\n04:32\tRichard Sommer, Audio Recording\tHere we go.\n04:33\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tI don’t know where I can find it—[Long pause] pieces, pieces. Oh, here it is.\nNow, how it goes. You have to keep quiet until… [Random Flute Notes] See, now… [Laugh] He’s never done this one before.\n05:04\tRichard Sommer, Audio Recording\tWhat, what, yeah, what do you want me to do then?\n05:06\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tOkay, this is called “Shore Animals,” and it says, “speech feas—piece with flute,” and the flute has to listen.\nAnd it can pl–, it can speak, too. You have to listen to it. Yeah, you never heard it before.\n05:21\tRichard Sommer, Audio Recording\tI think it’s learning how to speak.\n05:26\tMaxine Gadd, Audio Recording\tIt’s called “Shore Animals,” a speech piece with a flute.\n[Maxine begins to recite, Richard plays the flute]\n“So hearing where the poppy stopped me,\nsmall chance to star spiel, all you have told me,\ngone, false and beautiful gods and groves.\nPeople truth. Put it into song when the traffic is gone, gone, gone.\nI’ll fling it in the air—my debt to your tongue, Saturn.\nIn your minds, I’ve split a spleen, lust my lust.\nCome along, fawn. Oh! So, I have to whistle to you.”\n[Audience laughs] [Whistling]\n06:23\tKatherine McLeod [from ShortCuts 1.2]\tThat was Maxine Gadd reading “Shore Animals” with Richard Sommer improvising the flute at a reading that took place in Montreal on February 18, 1972.\n06:34\tTheme music\t[Theme music fades in]\n06:38\tKatherine McLeod\tHead to SpokenWeb.ca to find out more about the audio of the month and how to listen to the entire recording. My name is Katherine McLeod. Tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives.\n07:00\tTheme music\t[Theme music ends]\n \n\n"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9997","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 5.5, ShortCuts Live! Turning Our Bodies Toward Sound with Xiaoxuan Huang, 20 May 2024"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-hybrid-poetics/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2024],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/7870778a-a9bf-49d8-a85e-431dd4a12705/audio/b6cd0426-b37e-451f-8416-8453d559a884/default_tc.mp3?nocache\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"shortcuts-may-17-mix-v1.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:25:58\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"24,935,487 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"shortcuts-may-17-mix-v1\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/shortcuts-live-hybrid-poetics/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2024-05-20\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"AUDIO\\n\\nHuang, Xiaoxuan.  “the way we hold our hands with nothing in them.”\\n\\nSinister Flower, the radio show curated by Lucía Meliá and what Xiaoxuan talks about listening to recently.\\n\\n*\\n\\nRESOURCES\\n\\nRead “Vibrate in Sympathy,” a poetic reflection on the 2022 SpokenWeb Symposium written by Xiaoxuan Huang,\\n\\n\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549822111745,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This month, we’re back with another Shortcuts Live, talking with researchers in person and starting those conversations with a short ‘cut’ of audio. These ShortCuts Live conversations were recorded on-site at the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium held at the University of Alberta.\n\nIn this conversation, Xiaoxuan Huang talks about hybrid poetics (and more) with then-supervising producer Kate Moffatt. The audio that informs this conversation is a clip from an audio-visual poetry collage by Huang called “the way we hold our hands with nothing in them.”  The audio of this collage beautifully sets the sonic environment for this conversation. Listen, and find yourself turning towards the sound.\n\n\n00:00\tKate Moffatt:\tKatherine will write a little host, or she has a little host intro that goes in. I don’t know if she writes new ones for each one. Sometimes, she does, but we can also introduce it a little.\n00:08\tMiranda Eastwood:\tShe does. No, she will do it, especially for the live Shortcuts. She does. It’s just to be like, “That’s what’s going on,” because they’re special.\nRight.\n00:13\tKate Moffatt:\tThe live ones are the best ones.\n00:14\tMiranda Eastwood:\tThey’re very good.\n00:16\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tLive things tend to be–\n00:18\tKate Moffatt:\t[Kate and Miranda laugh] Yeah. Yeah. They’re very good. And is it recording right now already?\n00:21\tMiranda Eastwood:\tIt is recording right now.\n00:22\tKate Moffatt:\tI love this little behind-the-scenes, where it’s like [Laughter] “What the heck are we doing?”\nThat’s so perfect. Did we decide how we wanted to start the episode?\n00:29\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tCould I have a […] I mean, I’m just gonna drink some water. [Laughter]\n00:31\tKate Moffatt:\tPlease go for it. Yeah. Yeah.\n00:34\tMiranda Eastwood:\tNope, we can do whatever we want. We can just go for it. Whatever feels right. Okay. [Laughter]\n00:39\tKate Moffatt:\tUm, I will wait until you’re done with your water bottle.\n00:41\tMiranda Eastwood:\tYou can say, “This is Shortcuts with Kate Moffatt.”\n00:44\tKate Moffatt:\t“Welcome to Shortcuts Live.”\nDo I need to introduce myself? No.\n00:46\tMiranda Eastwood:\tYou should. It would–\n00:47\tKate Moffatt:\tDoes Katherine introduce herself?\n00:49\tMiranda Eastwood:\tWell, no, but she’s the producer. We–\n00:51\tKate Moffatt:\tShe’s always the person who does it. Oh my gosh. Okay.\n00:54\tMiranda Eastwood:\tBut she does say, “I’m Katherine.”\nShe does say, “I am Katherine McLeod.” I think. Now my brain’s just zoning it out ’cause I’m like, “Oh, I know, I know. It’s Katherine McLeod” [Laughs]\n01:03\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tI think it’s always nice as a listener, [overlap: “to know who you’re listening to.”] even if you’re a long-time listener.\n01:07\tKate Moffatt:\tWorst case, we can cut it out.\n01:11\tKatherine McLeod:\t[SpokenWeb Shortcuts Theme Song Starts Playing]\nWelcome to Shortcuts. My name is Katherine McLeod, and I’m the producer for this Shortcut series on the podcast. Yes, they were right, I am introducing myself and telling you about what you’re going to hear.\nThis month, we’re back with another Shortcuts Live, talking with researchers in person and starting those conversations with a shortcut of audio. These Shortcuts Live conversations were recorded on-site at the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium held at the University of Alberta. For this conversation, we’re sitting down with Xiaoxuan Wong to talk about sound, language, video, poetry, voice, making room for the indeterminate, and more, like playlist recommendations – listen to the end for that.\n02:01\tKatherine McLeod:\tThe conversation is led by Kate Moffatt, and you’ll occasionally hear Miranda Eastwood recording in the background and adding a few comments, including an enthusiastic applause that I have left in at the end. I love that applause because it really emphasizes that this was recorded live. Let’s jump back into that onsite conversation and let the conversation speak for itself.\n[Music fades]\n02:30\tKate Moffatt:\tHello and welcome to Shortcuts Live. My name is Kate Moffatt. I am the supervising producer for the SpokenWeb podcast, and I’m hopping in for Katherine McLeod on this particular episode of Shortcuts. We are so excited to sit down with Xiaoxuan Wong today, and actually, yeah. Xiaoxuan, would you mind introducing yourself?\n02:55\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tOf course. I am so happy to be here. Thank you, Kate, for sitting down with me. Yeah. My name is Xiaoxuan Wong. I also go by just Xiao and sometimes publish under Sherry as well, Sherry Huang. But yeah, I am a poet, first and foremost. But I feel most at home, kind of playing around with different mediums and voicings and spaces. So, I kind of describe myself as working in “hybrid poetics.”\nThe piece that we’re gonna be maybe talking about and hearing a little bit from will sort of be a good example of how my practice converges a few different\nmediums.\n03:48\tKate Moffatt:\tWonderful. And I think we are, we’re gonna just start by\nlistening to this. Is that right? Okay. Let me pull it up. And here we go.\n03:58\tXiaoxuan Wong, Audio of Xiaoxuan Reading “The Way We Hold Our Hands With Nothing in Them” \t[Audio From A Video Poem Played. Ambient Music Plays And A Voice Reads The Words As A Poem.]\nI don’t know the names of trees, but I can tell what time it is from the way their shadows lean. It might feel sometimes like we are here just to run out of time. I want you to know, it hurts me, too. One day, we will drive through the mountains. The weather will be unusually hot. Actually, it will be your birthday again. You will pull over on the side of the road and say, “come here. I wanna show you something.” And it will be the tops of trees. I go to a lot of parties, hoping I’ll see you there. Often, what I remember the next day is all the people outside smoking. The air flares up in turns, like a circle of lightning bugs. Someone offers me a drag, I refuse, or no one does. And I ask for one, forgetting I was supposed to be leaving just like in previous years. This summer, too, is likely to leave us with its heat mixed into us. The trees are thinking of what I’m thinking of – your face next to mine in the absenting light due to atmosphere. Due to all the time we don’t have.\n06:07\tKate Moffatt:\tOkay. Amazing. Xiao, can you please–\n06:11\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tThank you–\n06:12\tKate Moffatt:\tTell me what we were just listening to.\n06:15\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tYeah. So, we’re recording this at the SpokenWeb Symposium hosted at U of A. And this piece was sort of, you know, made with existing […] the text was pre-existing, and the ambient guitar that you hear was improvised.\nBut this iteration of this project was made in response to the call of this year’s symposium “Reverb Echo.” So yeah, this piece is like around six minutes. It’s an audio-visual piece as well as a poetry collage of, I guess, fragments that I took from a longer project, which was my master’s thesis called “All the Time.”\nBut, this iteration of this project, the six-minute audio-visual poetry collage, is called “The Way We Hold Our Hands With Nothing in Them,” which itself is a fragment from “All the Time.” So, I think what I said before about multiple mediums and practices kind of informing me, my mode of practicing “hybrid poetics,” this is one version of how it sometimes shows up. Generally, I think about sound and musical sound and ambient sound or ambient musical sound, I guess, as a part of the voicings of my poem. But, it’s not necessarily the most authoritative one. I love my poems dearly when they’re just on the page as well. And also just, you know, read.\nAnd so there’s these multiple registers of voicings that I’m really interested in playing with. And kind of sensing through how certain ways of displaying the poem could, on some levels, create a different type of room that we can all enter together and that feels different from the room that is made through just a stanza, which itself also means room.\n08:55\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tYeah. [Laughter] It’s been one of those concepts that have long haunted me, and I’m sure long haunted many other thinkers and poets, as well. But, it feels really appropriate to me ’cause I think that’s part of what I wanna do with language, is to create an atmosphere as well as tell a story. I know that my relationship to language and poetic language has always been something I am gonna continue to grapple with. But I think I was having a conversation, earlier where I said that these remediations of poetry and poetic text through music and performance and video and image components as well. I’ve done some screen printing, as well, of my poetry.\n10:00\tKate Moffatt:\tThat’s so cool. [Laughs]\n10:02\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tAnd, yeah, these are all kind of ways to push back against languages, urge to close in on itself and signify too quickly, or kind of seal itself off from the indeterminate.\n10:22\tKate Moffatt:\tTo be contained–\n10:23\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tYeah, yeah.\n10:24\tKate Moffatt:\tWhich has some interesting kind of echoes of the idea of like the room that you were talking about, an atmosphere for, to resist that containment that a word has kind of inherently.\n10:34\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tPrecisely. And I think I wanna give the room – and also language itself like room – to come and go and alter. And I think that’s the kind of, when language is employed like that, it gets me really excited. And it sort of lives in my body differently. It lingers. It has longer staying power when there’s a kernel of indeterminacy to it. Because I find that it sort of becomes more rich with wider application–\n11:20\tKate Moffatt:\tThe possibility that comes with almost like the embodiment of it.\n11:24\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tAbsolutely. Yeah. And, so in this video piece what I guess our listeners can’t see is there are sort of bad subtitles on screen. So\nthe visual is just actually like an iPhone footage. One long shot of, I think a blood moon from last year that I took.\nAnd, the image of the moon has kind of accompanied my short, relatively short career as an artist. I’m only 30, so yeah. And, I’m sure it’ll stay with me. But, on top of the video are these like yellow kind of traditional, like yellow font?\n12:21\tKate Moffatt:\tI noticed that sometimes, there’s like the square brackets where there’s words missing or bits and pieces, and not everything is subtitled. Right?\n12:29\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tYeah. And that was kind of a decision that I made on a fly. And I think that aesthetically evoking this, the way I play with space on the page too, when it’s a textual, like a purely textual piece I use a lot, I consider a lot about the space on the page. I don’t really use traditional punctuation. I forgo conventional capitalization and punctuation for spacing. And I think spacing itself is like one of the main ways that I write with.\n13:09\tKate Moffatt:\tYeah. Our listeners aren’t gonna know this, and maybe you don’t either, but I absolutely had goosebumps while I was reading the sort of yet partial subtitles unfinished in a way. But, yeah, that very intentional kind of creating of space in the subtitles itself was, yeah. Anyways, I got goosebumps. So that’s kind of fun. [Laughs]\n13:29\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tThat’s beautiful. Thank you for telling me that. Thanks, Kate.\n13:34\tKate Moffatt:\tNo, of course. It was, it was stunning. I can’t wait to watch the whole thing. Actually. I feel like, I wish we could just have played the whole thing. It was so lovely. Those first couple of minutes.\n13:45\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tThank you. Yeah. The square brackets felt important to me over parenthetical, like curve brackets. There’s something about the square brackets aesthetically that I feel have less associations with an “aside” or, you know, a kind of “lower register of signification.” I didn’t necessarily want those connotations of like this is an “aside” or what is being redacted, totally being redacted is less important. Or rather, that what is unsaid is less important. I think that with the square brackets, my hope is to kind of invite in room for kind of, again, the indeterminate what is unsaid, what can’t be said, and what even sometimes the square brackets are on screen when the, the voice in the audio is actually completing the line.\nSo also, you know, putting those two intentions, like the visual of the square brackets, the text being withheld on screen while the voice is kind of speaking in utterance.\n15:10\tKate Moffatt:\tWhy is it something that can be voiced but not written down?\n[Overlapping: Right. Right.] What makes you kind of question the gap that’s maybe occurring?\n15:18\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tThat’s such an interesting reading of that. Yeah. I love that. And, I think one of the best parts of my conference experience, especially with SpokenWeb, is the conversations that I get to have with everyone else who loves thinking about sound and exalting the unspoken and silence and the fullness and the capability of silence, potentiality of silence.\n15:47\tKate Moffatt:\tI’d love to, if you don’t mind, just hop back quickly to[…]you were saying that you do get this kind of like multiple registers of voicing in the poem and thinking about different ways of engaging with like the room or the containment. And I’m just[…]you bringing up the conference and kind of what we’ve been discussing over the past couple of days. We’ve often brought up, you know, these ideas of echoes, particularly the ways that echoes are created or the way that reverberations sound in rooms, spaces, or architecture. And I just wanted to ask if to bring this around a little bit to listening and the role that maybe thinking about those spaces and how sound is created in those spaces, or how you think about creating sound in things like a room. If there’s a particular role that listening plays, if there are multiple registers of listening because you’ve got multiple registers of voicing, and how the space that this is happening in, or the space that you’re creating for it, how that impacts that.\nI don’t know. That’s a big, long, twisty question. Feel free to take anything from there that feels like it speaks to you.\n16:53\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tI love it when questions twist, ’cause then that allows my answers to twist.\n16:57\tKate Moffatt:\tWonderful. Give us a twisty answer.\n16:59\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tSo one part of this video that we didn’t get to hear later, the voice says, “some ways of listening, turn the whole body into an ear”–\n17:15\tKate Moffatt:\tOh, wow.\n17:16\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tAnd I –\n17:18\tKate Moffatt:\tI got more goosebumps. [Laughter]\n17:21\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tI mean, think in a way that[…]talk about a twisting, right? Like the body itself in turning becomes an apostrophe. Like, apostrophe is, means, to turn. And, I –\n17:40\tKate Moffatt:\tStunning. That’s so stunning. Sorry, I need a second. [Laughter]\nThat’s so lovely.\n17:45\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tYeah. I love that question because I think that[…]and I love that we’re recording this in a sound booth, which in a way is attempting to like erase the space or the contours. [Overlap: Oh, yeah.]\nI think with that line, the way I’m feeling it now in conversation with your question is like, I’m thinking about turning’s relationship to listening and like what it does to turn a body to face a certain way. And so, now I’m thinking about orientation, what we choose to focus on. And we all know that listening is as much about attention and focus as it is about volume. So, I think that ultimately, listening is an orientation that we get to choose. I mean, to a certain extent.\n18:46\tKate Moffatt:\tRight? No, but I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. That there is, that we should not feel like it’s something passive that’s only happening passively. There is so much intentionality, and that intentionality can shape that entirely.\n18:57\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tYeah. Yes. Yeah. [Laughter]. Yes. Yes. That’s it. [Laughter].\n19:02\tKate Moffatt:\tOh, that’s such a wonderful answer. And I feel like even as you were saying that about us being in the booth too that we have kind of prioritized, we are choosing to forgo the space, the larger space that we’re in. For the sake of like a clear voicing. In technical terms, like a clear particular voicing of our conversation.\n19:28\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tUhhuh [Affirmative]\n19:28\tKate Moffatt:\tAnd like, yeah.\n19:30\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tYeah. Um, like I love analog technology because of its grit. And it’s like the grain, like Barthes talks about, like the grain of the voice. And I just, um, yeah. Like incredible.\nMy friends make fun of me. This is off-topic now, but my friends – I love it – make fun of me for all my playlists. Like, my music taste is like boys who can’t sing and sad indie girls. And, um, [Laughs]–\n20:02\tKate Moffatt:\tI love it. I love it. You’re really selling your playlist, actually. I love it.\n20:07\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tAnd I like, I don’t know, there’s something about hearing flaws\nand, um, hearing texture when things aren’t super smoothed out and polished, that is so compelling to me. And so, when I take that as like a, um, I think that’s informed by like my, the way I grew up in small-town Ontario, music scenes and, um, Kingston, Ontario – shout out to Kingston [Laughs] – um, such a rich music scene for its like per capita in terms of its–\n20:47\tKate Moffatt:\tI love that–\n20:48\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tIt’s population. I think there are so many wonderful things, like collectives working together to bring and sustain God. We know, we all know how hard it is to sustain a scene; takes all of us. And yeah, like I think my embracing of the grittiness and not erasing certain contours or not blurring, I guess like cleaning up things too much is informed by experimentation and just doing it. Not being interested in being, I don’t know, an apprentice in [Laughs] for too long before actually picking up a guitar or picking up some drumsticks.\n21:41\tKate Moffatt:\tBut that imperfection is actually part of the, it’s part of the magic that’s happening in the first place.\n21:46\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tYeah. And it allows for you to put on a show then…Like, I don’t know why I love that–\n21:53\tKate Moffatt:\tThat’s more important than making it perfect first, right?\n21:56\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tYeah. Yeah.\n21:57\tKate Moffatt:\tOr making it perfect at all. Amazing.\nOkay. Well, I’d like to finish with one last quick question, which is: What are you listening to lately? Like in your research or at the conference–\n22:08\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tOh, gosh.\n22:09\tKate Moffatt:\tOr even just generally. This is kind of hopping off of that lovely little playlist tangent you sent us on. But we can end with this one, but yeah. What are you listening to?\n22:19\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tI, okay, so I am listening to…I love radio. I love the intimacy of radio, especially community radio, campus radio, you know, hearing myself being addressed. One-on-one. So it feels like, to me I’ve had, I’ve written about it. I’ve kind of, that’s a relationship to another’s voice that feels really special.\n22:57\tKate Moffatt:\tThat’s such a gorgeous way to think about it.\n23:00\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tThanks. So, I guess like radio shows, I don’t know. I workout to like\nNTS’s “Infinite” mixtape, [Laughs] that they have on there, and make some cool discoveries there. And yeah, I think I’ve, the internet has introduced me to a lot of connections too, like Lucía Meliáwho is based out of Mexico City. She is, yeah, she is a radio…she has a radio show called “Sinister Flowers.” That great name, right?\n23:42\tKate Moffatt:\tGreat name. [Laughs]\n23:43\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tThat is a, I think the most ideal. It’s everything I want in a radio show. It has critical theory. It has music and like field recordings. Poetry works its way in there. And Lucía’s taste is just like, right on. So I, yeah. And right now I’m listening to “Sinister Flowers.”\n24:13\tKate Moffatt:\tI’m gonna have to write that down. Well, I think we’ll stop there. Thank you so much. It was so lovely. It was so, words are not capturing this properly. It wasn’t lovely. It was so much more than lovely, but it was lovely. So thank you so much, so much for joining us and\n24:27\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tSee you at the conference.\n24:28\tKate Moffatt:\tSee you at the rest of the conference, yeah.\n24:29\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tThere’s a cabaret tonight.\n24:31\tKate Moffatt:\tThere’s a cabaret. We’re gonna go listen together at the cabaret.\n24:35\tXiaoxuan Wong:\tThank you so much, Kate.\n24:36\tKate Moffatt:\tThank you.\n24:36\tMiranda Eastwood:\tYay! [Miranda cheers]\n24:39\tMusic:\t[SpokenWeb theme song starts playing]\n24:42\tKatherine McLeod:\tYou’ve been listening to Shortcuts.\n24:46\tKatherine McLeod:\tThanks to Xiaoxuan Wong for talking with us in this episode. And a big thanks to Kate Moffatt and Miranda Eastwood for conducting and recording the conversation.\nShortcuts is part of the SpokenWeb podcast.\nThe SpokenWeb podcast is made up of supervising producer Maia Harris, sound designer, James Healy, transcriber, Yara Ajeeb, and co-host Hannah McGregor, and myself, Katherine McLeod. Like all of these Shortcuts live\nconversations from last year’s symposium, there really is a sense of being there. And, I thought that this conversation in particular was such a great way of thinking back to the feeling of being there last year and looking ahead to this year’s symposium. In fact, we’ll be rolling out the last of these Shortcuts Live conversations as a full episode in the very same week as this year’s SpokenWeb symposium takes place. Stay tuned for that in the first week of June, right here on the podcast feed. And, for now, thanks for listening."],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9998","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 5.6, Open Door Listening, with Brandon LaBelle at Errant Bodies Press, 29 July 2024, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/open-door-listening-with-brandon-labelle-at-errant-bodies-press/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2024],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/episodes/291d921e-f868-4021-87cf-786ea58df875/audio/50ec4344-8b6b-4319-8f76-062ea1d7b47c/default_tc.mp3?nocache\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"audio-sample-shortcuts-errant-bodies-press.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:21:34\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"20,770,108 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"ShortCuts - Errant Bodies Press\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/open-door-listening-with-brandon-labelle-at-errant-bodies-press/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2024-07-29\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"citation\":\"REFERENCES\\n\\nCopeland, Stacey, Hannah McGregor and Katherine McLeod. “The Kitchen Table is Always Where We Are: Podcasting as Feminist Self-Reflexive Practice.” Podcast Studies: Theory into Practice, eds. Dario Linares and Lori Beckstead, Wilfrid Laurier UP, forthcoming in December 2024.\\n\\nLaBelle, Brandon. “Poetics of Listening.” ESC: English Studies in Canada, vol. 46 no. 2, 2020, p. 273-277. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/esc.2020.a903562.\\n\\nMcLeod, Katherine. “Archival Listening.” ESC: English Studies in Canada, vol. 46 no. 2, 2020, p. 325-331. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/esc.2020.a903565.\"}]"],"_version_":1853670549825257472,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["ShortCuts as a series on The SpokenWeb Podcast feed is coming to an end.\n\nFor the past five seasons, ShortCuts producer Katherine McLeod has been bringing you deep dives into the archives. Through this process, ShortCuts has asked the question of what it means to listen closely and carefully to short ‘cuts’ of audio. ShortCuts has become a sonic space to practice feminist listening and that listening has informed and continues to inform audio-based research, performances (including performances based on ShortCuts audio), and print publications (such as “Archival Listening” and “The Kitchen Table is Always Where We Are: Podcasting as Feminist Self-Reflexive Practice”).\n\nFor this final ShortCuts, we listen to a conversation with Brandon LaBelle recorded on-site at Errant Bodies Press in Berlin. Listen to hear a reading from LaBelle’s “Poetics of Listening” (as published in ESC “New Sonic Approaches in Literary Studies”), to hear about Errant Bodies Press and what it sounds like to be there, and to hear the open door as a way of listening. That open door listening will continue even after ShortCuts ends.\n\nStay tuned for what is next!\n\n[Sound of walking down stairs and door opening] (00:00)\n\nKatherine McLeod (00:22):\n\nWelcome to Shortcuts. \n\n[Door closes and theme music begins]\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nThis ShortCuts is recorded in Berlin. It is a conversation with Brandon LaBelle at Errant Bodies Press. The episode explores the sound of Errant Bodies Press as a space of listening. It just so happened that where I was staying in Berlin was within walking distance. We laughed about that when I arrived.\n\nMy conversation with Brandon LaBelle took place after his piece “Poetics of Listening” was published in the special issue of English studies in Canada that I edited with Jason Camlot. The special issue is called “New Sonic Approaches in Literary Studies.” And when I sat down with Brandon LaBelle at Errant Body’s Press, there was the journal issue on the table. It had made it to Berlin and it was ready to make itself heard in this space of listening.\n\n \nBrandon LaBelle (01:56):\n\nWould you like some tea, or water?\n\n \n[Music]\n\n \nKatherine McLeod:\nThis is such a, a beautiful space. I was –\n\n \nBrandon LaBelle (02:10):\n\nYeah. Yeah. No, we really enjoyed it. I’ve had it for a couple years now, and yeah. I’ve been kind of working here as a studio and, and then like having a home for the press. Yeah. And lately it’s become more, I’ve started to invite some friends to join me, so now we’re kind of creating a little bit of a collective more like a kind of a study group. \n\n \nKatherine McLeod\n\nMm-Hmm. <Affirmative> \n\n \nBrandon Labelle:\n\nWe’re all like focusing around listening and planetary. So yeah. We’re having kind of study sessions and making workshops and small events, so the space really is conducive to that. \n\n \nKatherine McLeod (02:53):\n\n‘Cause I was so interested in how the space is both a press and also a space of practice and developing methods and collaboration together. And so this combination of space adds again, the, both like the physical presence of books, but also a space of real performance and enactment that that clearly takes place in it too. So that’s, it’s a really fascinating combination. Even just as I look around, I see the books are so present, and yet it feels like at these tables, action takes place and listening takes place. So it feels like the kind of space that invites both.\n\n \nBrandon LaBelle (03:34):\n\nYeah.\n\n \nKatherine McLeod (03:35):\n\nYeah. And the Listening Biennal, does that take place here? Or is that,\n\n \nBrandon LaBelle (03:40):\n\nYes\n\n \nKatherine McLeod\n\nI mean, I see the poster.\n\n \nBrandon LaBelle (03:42):\n\nYeah. Yeah. This is actually our new poster. Oh, that was from last\n\n \nKatherine: \n\nYear. Oh, thank you. \n\n \nBrandon LaBelle (03:47):\n\nTwo years ago. Yeah. And yeah, so what we’re planning now is to actually Yeah. Install the biennial here. Okay. To make a listening lounge. So we’ll kind of get rid of the tables and just have some carpets and pillows and oh, nice. Yeah. And sort of have, be open on the weekend and, and sort of diffuse the audio works and yeah. Create a kind of cozy environment for people to be here and listen together. So that’s kind of the plan. Next week we have the Listening Academy, which is focusing on the somatic. And then we’ll have a performance on Saturday with Sixth Dancers that we’ve been developing called The Open Body.\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nOkay.\n\n \nBrandon LaBelle (04:32):\n\nWhich really takes listening as the basis for movement Right. And developing different strategies around that. So yeah. We’re, yeah, I’ve been rehearsing that the last month. \n\n \nKatherine: \n\nHave you been part of that as well? \n\n \nBrandon LaBelle (04:45):\n\nI’m sort of conceptualizing the project. \n\n \n\nKatherine: \n\nAmazing. \n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle (04:48):\n\nAnd then yeah. Working with different performers. Yeah. But it’s coming along, and should be interesting to stage it. \n\n \n\nKatherine:\n\nWhere will that take place?\n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle (04:58):\n\nIt’s at a performance venue just in the neighborhood here. It’s an old ballroom Oh, wow. With former East Berlin, and yeah. It’s been running as a venue for probably 20 years now, so it’s a wonderful space. \n\n \n\nKatherine:\n\nYeah. Yeah. I was reading a bit about the old ballrooms that are, maybe it’s even that same one that is in this neighborhood that oh, that sounds fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. And then the space can kind of become part of the Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> the performance.\n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle:\n\nYeah. It’s a wonderful environment. They have a, it’s sort of set in a park, which is partly a cemetery.\n\nThey have these large, very large windows in the space that we’re gonna uncover and just look out into the, into the trees, use the sunlight and the, the evening twilight as the, the lighting. Oh, beautiful.\n\n \n\nKatherine: \n\nBeautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s, oh – \n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle (05:46):\n\nThat’s nice. She should be lovely.\n\n \n\nKatherine (05:48):\n\nYeah. Sounds beautiful. Yeah. And then thinking of what I, what I do in shortcuts is almost like a, like, I call it like a deep dive into archival sound and where we can, you know, really listen to one clip or one sound. So I was thinking about this space itself that we’re in and thinking of almost like if this is a shortcuts episode, almost like a deep dive into the sound of err bodies press <laugh>, and a close listening to it. So I thought maybe if I ask you a sort of a more formal question of what are we listening to now?\n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle (06:25):\n\nMm-Hmm. <Affirmative>  Well, let’s, let’s take a moment. Yeah. I mean, I guess for myself, what has always been really essential that I’ve tried to kind of find ways of developing is maybe what we could think of as the open door. \n\n \n\nKatherine: \n\nMm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. \n\n \n\nBrandon:\n\nSo, and maybe Berlin particularly sort of offers this opportunity for artists or for, as my friend always says idealists, to sort of really manifest the imagination. To find space for really playing out. Sort of ideas and imaginaries and creative explorations. And so I think being in Berlin for me has, you know, I really embraced that and really sort of feel like I thrive in that kind of cultural environment. And so having a space like this and locating oneself and, and in, in such a manner, which is like about a certain kind of privacy. But at the same time, having this relationship to the street. \n\n \n\nKatherine:\n\nMm-Hmm. <Affirmative> \n\n \n\nBrandon: \n\n– and having an address where others can enter. And so I think this open door, and this kind of threshold, public and private, is really also something I try to integrate or learn from through my practice. So maybe we are hearing that open door. \n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nYeah. I’m very aware of both the sounds of our voices in the space. Like if I slightly move my foot, feeling like the texture of the floor and the sounds like going up to the high ceilings, but also, but I’m so aware in this sort of beautiful kind of echo of the space, the sounds from of outside coming in, that sound of the bird or the cars passing and voices. And so yeah, I think that the, the door is where we are listening to the door <laugh>, and and it’s doing something very powerful right there, a car is passing. And there’s also something too about even seeing, looking around and seeing the, the books now seeing CDs as well the books from the press behind you, it feels like we’re, we’re kind of listening to that too as well in simply sort of by their presence here.\n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle (09:02):\n\nYeah, that’s true. I know that often people enter and also really enjoy that material – being sort of enveloped in that kind of material of books and, and documents and media. That becomes very immediately enticing, and evocative. And so I kind of also appreciate that as a, yeah. As also a creative expression in itself. So for instance, these binders over here are a set of, they came out of a, a project I developed called The Other Citizen, and they were part of like, almost like an archival installation I made at Transmediale a few years ago. And they’re really designed, they’re like, each one is referencing a certain discursive framework. But they try to kind of be quite creative with how you sort of house or categorize knowledge. So they’re intentionally quite enticing as well, you know, in terms of what they suggest. And they’re kind of topics that come out of my own readings and my own activities, but also picking up from what is present around us in, in sort of current, current discussions or issues. So they’re, they’re inherently stray from a particular disciplinary structure and try to be more transversal and playful. \n\n \n\nKatherine:\n\n<Affirmative>.\n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle (10:41):\n\nSo I think this also is part of what is present in the room. Mm-Hmm.\n\nSpeaker 4 (10:46):\n\n<Affirmative>. Yeah.\n\nBrandon LaBelle (10:47):\n\nThis relationship to knowledge and discourse is also sort of enlivening\n\nKatherine: \n\nYeah.\n\nBrandon LaBelle (10:54):\n\nSuggestive. Imaginative.\n\n \n\nKatherine: \n\nYeah, that just made me think when you said that of sort of dis – in thinking of disciplinary listening you know… it is a space that it’s hard to say, oh, this, you couldn’t say, you could look say on one shelf and be like, oh, okay, I see the discipline. Maybe, you know, sound studies. I’ve seen some titles there. But then as soon as you move to the next shelf, there’s another sort of disciplinary approach that’s very present. But also thinking again, of what this space is, where we are, where we are at the table what kind of disciplinary listening takes place here, which would feel quite different than on the shelf. \n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle (11:38):\n\nYeah. This is the top shelf. Is the CDs.\n\n \n\nKatherine:\n\nYeah, yeah.\n\nBrandon LaBelle (11:44):\n\nA sort of particular format we came up with. Yeah. Which, which sort of takes the shape of the book more. Oh, may. Okay. Yeah. And they always kind of have this Yeah. Like an elaborated booklet inside. \n\nSo it was very much about keeping the idea of, of sound and sonic practice close to kind of discursive reflection. Right. Or textual Right. Matter as well. So that one would kind of read and listen or listen and read. So these things, bringing them close together, it’s quite important in that series. ’cause Sometimes, yeah. I mean, I guess there’s, there’s some, on some level there’s a kind of often a sort of idea that, you know, you have like a kind of community of practitioners often coming from an experimental music sort of arena that, you know, doesn’t necessarily relate itself to more academic informed investigations. And I always, I try to make this sort disregard this separation Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And so practice in theory being very integrated feels really, you know, part of the room.\n\n \n\nSpeaker 4 (12:55):\n\nRight. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. Yeah. Do you see that as, say the, the word, the words like research creation that get sort of talked about a lot these days? Is that something that you, you, do you think of research creation as a framework that you work in? Or is that, is it sort of maybe something that you do but don’t think of it in that way…\n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle (13:19):\n\nNo, it’s, it’s a good question. I mean, the other day we were having a meeting sort of study session, and everyone around the table really, we kind of realized at a certain moment that we all occupy this kind of artistic research framework and that feel quite comfortable in that, or sort of supported by that term. And I think there is something to that. And, and even though I don’t necessarily really forefront that as defining of my work I think it’s somehow in the background Yeah. It’s around. And I’m sure that I’m, I’m very much participating in those communities. More and more, of course, as they get more alive and present, and maybe as you also suggested, how these separations are also becoming more or less important or less clear between sort of art and academic, or between the book and the cd. \n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nAnd certainly that’s, it’s been something that I’ve thought more about what research creation does in that the way in which SpokenWeb as a research network it has been attempting to sort of like activate archival materials or like, make, make things with them as whether in the case of the, the sort of the listening and making that I was talking about, or other kinds of, of sort of performative kind of curations that make things with archival materials. And so I think about how research creation is so important as academic work, and that it is indeed like it’s, it’s getting recognized as valid scholarship. Or even the podcast, it’s kind of a form of research creation in some way that you’re, you are you’re making something new and you’re making something that is often more creative that might not necessarily be following the same pathways as whatever the academic pathway, which often somehow gets defined as uncreative, which at the same time, it is creative too.\n\n \n\nSo it’s it’s almost a, a false, a false separation there between the, the research and creation to begin with. But, but it does feel like the there’s more support for that kind of work than, than there had been, or even, so even these, some of these formal categories help with that in some way, but yeah, that’s true. Yeah. But yeah, the just looking at the <laugh>, the collection here I was thinking that it would be beautiful to hear you read the opening to your piece, if you would be open to that. Sure. Because Sure. It is thinking as poetics a poetics of listening. It is a very poetic opening. And I thought, oh, to, to actually hear how you would voice that would be, would be a real a gift to use a word that is over there on the archival boxes. Let me turn, turn to it here – \n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle:\n\nOkay… [Begins reading]  It has already begun… the time … the time-space… of… speaking… of speaking that moves itself… toward knowing nothing… something you… the use that arrives from the particularities… as the basis for a giving… enacting a rhythmic… of breath… breathing toward… away\n\n \n\n[Pause – music begins]\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod (17:28):\n\nYou’ve been listening to ShortCuts. ShortCuts has been a monthly feature on the SpokenWeb podcast. It is now in its fifth season, and this may be the end of shortcuts, but who knows, there may still be shortcuts inspired Mini sos as short bonus content on the podcast feed. It is fitting that this is or could be the last episode of shortcuts. Shortcuts started as me alone recording short audio pieces as close and careful listenings to audio cut from spoken webs, archival collections. The first three seasons were quite solitary listenings, though they did make some long lasting connections with their listeners. The fourth and fifth seasons have been more and more social and live featuring conversations with spoken web researchers about archival clips of their choice and about their sound-based research. So it seemed like it could not be more fitting to conclude with a conversation with Brandon LaBelle as an expert listener, and within a space like Err Bodies press as a space of listening and a making. And to be far from the closet where I recorded so many episodes of shortcuts to be in Berlin.\n\n \n\nI edit this conversation back home in Montreal, and I record this voiceover from SpokenWeb’s podcast studio at Concordia. And as I think back over what shortcuts has made and the conversations it has sparked, I can’t help but be moved to do something that I love doing so much in shortcuts to listen again and again, and to let the sound speak for itself. And so with that, let’s listen once more to LaBelle’s reading from “A Poetics of Listening.” As I edited the audio of him reading, I noticed how he makes audible, the pauses in the text, the dot, dot dot, the ellipses. And I thought about how he rendered them in such a way that they invite a response in between the pauses. What if we listen to it like this?\n\n \n\n[Music ends]\n\n \n\nBrandon LaBelle (19:55):\n\n[Audio replays of LaBelle reading with voice overlaping – transcribed as heard] It has already begun. It has already – the time begun. The time-space, the time of the time space of speaking, that speaking moves itself, itself. Speaking that moves. Knowing nothing toward something, knowing nothing. You something. The uses that arrive from the, use the particularities as the basis particularities. A giving as the basis for a giving a rhythm, enacting breath, a rhythm, breathing toward breath away, breathing toward, away.\n\n \n\nKatherine McLeod (20:43):\n\nYou’ve been listening to ShortCuts. Thanks to Brandon for talking with me, amid the books and sounds of errant bodies. Press check the show notes for links to the press and to the Listening Biennal. ShortCuts is part of the SpokenWeb podcast. The podcast team is made up of supervising producer Maia Harris, sound designer, James Healy transcriber, Yara Ajeeb podcast co-hosts Hannah McGregor and me, Katherine McLeod. ShortCuts has been designed and produced by me, Katherine McLeod, and thanks to all who have joined me on it along the way. As always, thanks to you for listening.\n\n "],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9686","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 1.3, Audio of the Month – Where does the reading begin?, 16 March 2020, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-where-does-the-reading-begin/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2020],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/82798c7c-9e61-462e-be60-0d337f42f2a1/sw-minisode-ep-3_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"sw-minisode-ep-3_tc.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:04:47\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"4,663,633 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"Sw Minisode Ep 3\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-where-does-the-reading-begin/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2020-03-16\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[]"],"_version_":1853670549826306054,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This month our SpokenWeb minisode features Kaie Kellough reading at The Words and Music Show, Nov 20, 2016. As Kellough starts to introduce his reading, a pre-recorded voice slowly mixes with his live words. Where, then, does the introduction end, and where does the reading begin?\n\n00:00\n\nMusic:\n\n[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n\n00:10\n\nHannah McGregor:\n\nWelcome to our SpokenWeb minisodes. You know the drill. Each month on alternate fortnights—that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode—join me, Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month miniseries. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives. This series is an extension of Katherine’s Audio of the Week series at spokenweb.ca with Katherine brings her favourite audio each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb’s March edition of Audio of the Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds.\n\n01:08\n\nTheme Music:\n\n[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n\n01:08\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nIn this Audio of the Month, we’ll be listening to a recording of Kaie Kellough reading at The Words and Music Show in Montreal. The reading was on November 20th, 2016. Kellough’s voice has been recorded many times throughout the past 20 years of Montreal’s Words and Music Show, a monthly cabaret of spoken word, poetry, music, and dance established and organized by poet and musician Ian Ferrier. The recordings of these shows have now been digitized and cataloged by SpokenWeb researchers at Concordia University. During the digitization process, student research assistant Ali Barillaro noticed that this performance by Kellough stood out from the rest. As Kellough starts to introduce his own reading, a pre-recorded voice slowly mixes with his live words. Where, then, does the introduction end, and where does the reading begin?\n\n02:10\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Audio, Kaie Kellough] Hello, thanks Ian for that introduction and thanks to all of the other artists tonight. It’s been a very nice night. I’m going to present something to, at, for you that is somewhat narrative, I guess. But it isn’t related to my, to my novel. It’s some, some other narratives and the narratives are related to adolescence, [Audio, a recording of a masculine voice, overlapping with Kaie speaking. It progressively gets louder and more audible] which is a peculiar time in life. And I think that they’re relevant nowadays because they’re related to adolescents in a particular place in time–\n\n03:03\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] …gripping, steering…\n\n03:03\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –in Alberta–\n\n03:04\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice]…pumpjacks, a sign behind…\n\n03:07\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –in the–\n\n03:09\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] …I want to forget–\n\n03:09\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –1980s.\n\n03:10\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –high school fever–\n\n03:12\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] In, in–\n\n03:13\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –forever. Forget articles in _The Herald_–\n\n03:15\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –in the moment of–\n\n03:16\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –about black-haired teens from the reserves–\n\n03:17\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –heavy evangelical–\n\n03:18\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –who drank themselves to death–\n\n03:19\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –activity–\n\n03:20\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –in macho contests–\n\n03:20\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –and extreme conservatism and–\n\n03:22\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –trying to prove to themselves that they exist.\n\n03:24\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –some of the [Stutters] ch-ch-challenges–\n\n03:25\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] As night dripped into next day’s headlines,–\n\n03:27\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –that arise when growing up–\n\n03:28\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –I want to forget my stupid conviction–\n\n03:28\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –and trying to live and become oneself–\n\n03:31\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –that a boy had to be distilled–\n\n03:33\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –in a climate like that–\n\n03:35\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –into a man.\n\n03:35\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –which–\n\n03:35\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] That the terror of being bloodline–\n\n03:35\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –seems to be a climate that,–\n\n03:37\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –had to be spiked with rum.\n\n03:37\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –that is reemerging in spite of–\n\n03:39\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] That amber alcohol preserved–\n\n03:41\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –all of the,–\n\n03:41\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –the DNA–\n\n03:41\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –all of the-,-\n\n03:42\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –that seeped down centuries–\n\n03:44\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –all of the,–\n\n03:44\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –from slavery.\n\n03:45\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –appearances–\n\n03:46\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] That coloured this reflection on boyhood\n\n03:46\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –to the contrary, that had, that had appeared–\n\n03:49\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –in a far-flung suburb–\n\n03:50\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –in the past.–\n\n03:50\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –of empire,–\n\n03:51\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] The idea–\n\n03:52\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –a mighty slum,–\n\n03:53\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –that, that–\n\n03:53\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –a bubble, born yesterday–\n\n03:53\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –that–\n\n03:53\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –or a 12-pack of empties–\n\n03:53\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –born yesterday, was finished–\n\n03:53\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –or a bubble in a bottle,–\n\n03:58\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –and that–\n\n04:00\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –broken in the back seat,–\n\n04:00\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –it was gone and, and, and done–\n\n04:02\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] –a froth that slicked between–\n\n04:02\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Kaie] –and suddenly a wave… [Kaie begins distorting his own voice, deliberately stuttering, repeating, and cutting out as the recording of the masculine voice continues to sound clearly] A w-w-w-w-wave of c-c-c-c-conservatism has has has has has crashed…\n\n04:03\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Masculine Voice] — slides archived by teenage brains. Autobiography of an outsider screamed at the dragon. Nobody is [inaudible] crashed oldsmobile [inaudible] supreme…\n\n04:14\n\nMusic:\n\n[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n\n04:18\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nThat was Kaie Kellough reading at The Words and Music Show in Montreal on November 20th, 2016. Head to spokenweb.ca to find out more about where this recording is from. My name’s Katherine McLeod and tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives.\n\n"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9687","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 1.4, Audio of the Month – Dorothy Livesay listening to the radio, 20 April 2020, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-dorothy-livesay-listening-to-the-radio/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2020],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/3e711ac8-1ac2-4526-9497-8f7c82102e60/sw-minisode-ep-4_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"sw-minisode-ep-4_tc.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:07:28\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\" 7,242,441 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"Sw Minisode Ep 4\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-dorothy-livesay-listening-to-the-radio/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2020-04-20\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[]"],"_version_":1853670549827354624,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["In this Audio of the Month minisode Katherine Mcleod features recordings of poet Dorothy Livesay. We hear Livesay read selections of her work including “Bartok and the Geranium,” a poem that is often anthologized and, in fact, you may have studied it in a course on Canadian poetry. But do you know how Livesay wrote it?\n\n00:00\n\nMusic:\n\n[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n\n00:10\n\nHannah McGregor:\n\nWelcome to our SpokenWeb minisodes. Each month on alternate fortnights—that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode—join me, Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month miniseries. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives. An extension of Katherine’s Audio of the Week series at spokenweb.ca, Katherine brings her favourite audio each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. Without further ado, here is Katherine McLeod with SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds.\n\n00:52\n\nTheme Music:\n\n[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n\n01:03\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nIn this Audio of the Month, we’ll be listening to Canadian poet Dorothy Livesay. We’ll hear a clip of a recording of Livesay reading in Montreal on January 14th, 1971. The Audio of the Month is selected from a series of Audio of the Week posts that I’ve been creating for the spokenweb.ca site [Audio, recording of Livesay introducing “The Unquiet Bed overlapping with Katherine] and a previous Audio of the Week features Livesay reciting one of her most song-like poems “The Unquiet Bed.”\n\n01:31\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Audio, Dorothy Livesay reciting “The Unquiet Bed”] The woman I am / is not what you see. / I’m not just bones / and crockery. / The woman I am / knew love and hate / hating the chains / that parents make / longing that love / might set men free / yet hold them fast / in loyalty. / The woman I am / is not what you see / move over love / make room for me.\n\n01:57\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nThat was Livesay reading “The Unquiet Bed” and this Audio of the Month features another musical poem by Livesay from that same reading in Montreal in 1971. The poem is “Bartok and the Geranium.” This poem is one that is often anthologized and in fact, you may have studied it in a course on Canadian poetry. But do you know how the poem began?\n\n02:24\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Audio, Dorothy Livesay] The poem simply began because I was teaching an evening class of housewives the art of creative writing. And I gave them an assignment to write an imagistic or perhaps a haiku-type poem… When they got home, to look around the house and find two objects utterly different and disparate and just see if they could link these objects in a tension, which would create a poem. Well, the next day I was, had sent the children to school after lunch and was sitting in the dining room listening to CBC Concert and heard music that I hadn’t heard before at all, a violin concerto it seemed to be. And in the window as I was listening, there was this red geranium. So I thought to myself, well, I’ve given my class an assignment, I wonder if I could do the same thing. And at the end of the concert, they announced it was a Béla Bartók violin concerto. So suddenly these two elements, the music and the geranium, did seem to link in my mind and immediately I wrote the poem, which I think I’ve never revised. I’ll tell you afterwards what some of the professors have said about the meaning of the poem. [Audience Laughs]\n\n03:49\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nThis poem, the subject of probably thousands of student analyses by now, all started from an assignment that Livesay had given to her own students, a class full of women. How ironic that Livesay ends up producing a poem that then finds its way into the lecture notes of male professors who claim to reveal the true meaning of it or, as Livesay herself puts it:\n\n04:16\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Audio, Dorothy Livesay] He informed the class that this poem represented the conflict between nature and art. While at first I was a bit dumbfounded, you know now how the whole thing began and then what I felt about the he and she of it.\n\n04:32\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nWhat I find fascinating about Livesay’s story of writing the poem is not so much that she uncovers its origins. Our own interpretations of the poem are still valid and Livesay remains open to these varied interpretations, too. What I hear in her story is a story of her poetics. By this I mean that Livesay’s story of how she wrote “Bartok and the Geranium” is a story that fuses the imagism of her early poems of the 1920s with the tension of the social that informs her poetry from the mid-1930s onwards. The poem bursts forth from a moment of listening, a private moment of listening to something entirely new, her attention caught by the sound of the Bartók violin concerto and then framed by the space of domesticity in which she listens. It is instantaneous in this moment of listening that Livesay forges a connection between the sound of the music transmitted through the radio and the image of the flower framed by the window.\n\n05:45\n\nAudio Recording:\n\n[Audio, Dorothy Livesay reciting “Bartok and the Geranium”] She lifts her green umbrellas / Towards the pane / Seeking her fill of sunlight / Or of rain; / Whatever falls / She has no commentary / Accepts, extends, / Blows out her furbelows, / Her bustling boughs; / And all the while he whirls / Explodes in space, / Never content with this small room: / Not even can he be / Confined to sky / But must speed high and higher still / From galaxy to galaxy, / Wrench from the stars their momentary notes / Steal music from the moon. / She’s daylight / He is dark / She’s heaven­held breath / He storms and crackles / Spits with hell’s own spark. / Yet in this room, this moment now / These together breathe and be: / She, essence of serenity, / He in a mad intensity / Soars beyond sight / Then hurls, lost Lucifer / From Heaven’s height. / And when he’s done, he’s out: / She leans a lip against the glass / And preens herself in light.\n\n06:53\n\nMusic:\n\n[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n\n06:59\n\nKatherine McLeod:\n\nHead to spokenweb.ca to find out how to listen to the entire recording of Dorothy Livesay reading in Montreal in 1971. I’m Katherine McLeod and thanks for listening. Tune in next month for another deep dive into the sound archives of SpokenWeb.\n\n\n"],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9689","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 1.5, Audio of the Month – Then and Now, 18 May 2020, McLeod"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-then-and-now/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Katherine McLeod"],"creator_names_search":["Katherine McLeod"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"http://viaf.org/viaf/44156495389117561605\",\"name\":\"Katherine McLeod\",\"dates\":\"1981-  \",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2020],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/58452fcb-56ec-4594-bb2b-e732c0fcbafc/sw-minisode-5-then-and-now_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"sw-minisode-5-then-and-now_tc.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:07:38\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"7,406,281 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"SW Minisode 5_Then and Now\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-then-and-now/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2020-05-18\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[]"],"_version_":1853670549827354625,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This month our SpokenWeb minisode features Canadian poet Daphne Marlatt reading “Lagoon” from Vancouver Poems (1972), a deeply local collection that she had not yet published when this reading took place at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia) in Montreal. When listening to Marlatt reading “Lagoon,” we can hear the many futures of her listening, then and now.\n\n(00:00)\tMusic\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n(00:10)\tHannah McGregor\tWelcome to our SpokenWeb minisodes. Each month on alternate fortnights—that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode—join me, Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month miniseries. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives. This is an extension of Katherine’s Audio of the Week series at spokenweb.ca. Katherine brings her favourite audio each month to the SpokenWeb Podcast. So if you love what you hear, make sure to head over to spokenweb.ca for more. As the cherry blossoms fall in Vancouver and the snow melts away to spring flowers in Montreal, we’re reminded that spring is a time of renewal, to reflect on the past and celebrate new beginnings from coast to coast. While we find ourselves in uncertain times the season beckons us to collectively celebrate and regenerate in the then and now. No matter where you are listening from, take a deep breath of crisp, spring air and join Katherine in listening back with our ears towards the future. Here is Katherine McLeod with May’s SpokenWeb Audio of the Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds.\n(01:25)\tTheme Music\t[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n(01:30)\tKatherine McLeod\tIn this Audio of the Month, we’re going to be listening to the poem “Lagoon” by Daphne Marlatt. In 1970 in Montreal at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia), Daphne Marlatt read in the Sir George Williams Poetry Series. She began her reading with Vancouver Poems. These poems are from a deeply local collection that she had not yet published when this reading took place.\n(02:00)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Daphne Marlatt] I thought that what I’d do first is read to you from the Vancouver Poems.\n(02:05)\tKatherine McLeod\tBefore reading the first poem, “Lagoon,” she tells her Montreal audience that she’ll explain the local references as she goes along, starting with the first poem that refers to Lost Lagoon in Vancouver’s Stanley Park.\n(02:20)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Daphne Marlatt] I’ll just try and explain allusions as I go along for those people who have never been to Vancouver or know it because the poems tend to be pretty local as they were intended to be.\n(02:34)\tKatherine McLeod\tMarlatt could not have anticipated that those poems from Vancouver Poems published in 1972 would become pathways to revisit the city when republishing many of them, years later, in Liquidities: Vancouver Poems Then and Now published by Talon Books in 2013. Akin to Marlatt’s revisiting of place in the book Steveston, Liquidities _revisits and revises the city and the poetic voice. As Marlatt writes in her introduction to _Liquidities, “Vancouver Poems was a young woman’s take on a young city as it surfaced to her gaze.” By the way, she calls this introduction “Then and Now.” Marlatt’s return to the poems is not unlike the poet listening again to her own recorded voice. And that’s exactly what Marlatt did in November 2014 at Concordia when she read alongside and responded to her voice from that 1970 recording in the Sir George Williams Poetry Series. And again, five years later in September 2019 at UBC Okanagan, when Marlatt listened and responded to recordings of her voice and other voices in the Sir George Williams Poetry Series and in the UBC Okanagan-based SoundBox collection.’\n(04:01)\tKatherine McLeod\tI met Marlatt here in Montreal when she read alongside that recording of her voice from 1970. She signed my copy of _Liquidities _with the words “Vancouver connection.” Now, by now, if you’ve been listening to these Audio of the Months, you may have figured out that I’m from Vancouver and that the Vancouver-Montreal connection is a meaningful one. I open this book now and read these poems of Vancouver here in Montreal. And I think of the then and the now and whether to hold them together in my reading and in my listening, or let them go, move, slip, liquid, changing, and to listen to the poems, listening to this change. With that, let’s listen to Marlatt reading “Lagoon” in 1970 here in Montreal, listening to her reading in a voice that she will later listen to in a reading, and listening to the many futures of her listening then and now.\n(05:11)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Daphne Marlatt reciting “Lagoon.” Some words are absent or different than the version in _Liquidities_] Lagoon, / down a cut on the city side, apartments / shacked uphill, through shadow and hulls and ribs we walk. / You’ve come home. On either side dark nets remember / how a wind fishing for that extent both left and right / ruffles your hair. Here. The city drinks what it collects. / Water or ducks, a nesting place. A neck of land. / Whose profile somehow looks more narrow in the street. / Our eyes reflect … kites, banners, a populous sky. / What you or others brought, come back to / Lie when we / outwalk our dragons, thus, their future tails: catch / fire. / You confirm that we sail to the east at nine, shore wise / having no place, antique, a houseboard. Wind ships our / ship, stands, having completed its turn to, gather to / the bridge… / Wait! I can’t get my hand out of green / pockets green, dissected, frogs. The edges of their / vision littoral. We skirt red. I’m half in, wanting to / pull up reeds to plant. / Your coin proves nothing, no / bottom, don’t. Go (in shoes sucked under). Water / scuttles old men on benches dangle under conifers. Listen: / their edges are always murmuring, Marshes, Your / forced march. / Could we afford your going? A salmon run? On the / corner there, half indecisive, tarnish of atrophied / fish in raffia swung: a house sign, a place to / enter. / Where I’d make tea, your lips on the future, / caught, so you could read me.\n(07:16)\tMusic\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n(07:16)\tKatherine McLeod\tHead to spokenweb.ca to find out more about where this recording is from. My name’s Katherine McLeod and tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives."],"score":2.539672},{"id":"9690","cataloger_name":["Gloriah,Onyango"],"partnerInstitution":["Concordia University"],"collection_source_collection":["SpokenWeb AV"],"source_collection_label":["SpokenWeb AV"],"collection_contributing_unit":["SpokenWeb"],"source_collection_uri":[""],"collection_image_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/_nuxt/img/header-img_1000.fd7675f.png"],"collection_source_collection_description":["SpokenWeb Audio Visual Collection"],"collection_source_collection_id":["ArchiveOfThePresent"],"persistent_url":["https://archiveofthepresent.spokenweb.ca/"],"item_title":["SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts 1.6, Audio of the Month – From Poetic Surveillance to an Avant-Garde Dinner Fit for a Queen, 15 June 2020, Aubin"],"item_title_source":["SpokenWeb Podcast web page."],"item_title_note":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-from-poetic-surveillance-to-an-avant-garde-dinner-fit-for-a-queen/"],"item_language":["English"],"item_production_context":["Podcast"],"item_series_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast"],"item_series_description":["Series of podcasts by the SpokenWeb network."],"item_subseries_title":["The SpokenWeb Podcast ShortCuts"],"item_series_wikidata_url":["https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117038029"],"item_series_uri":["https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/spokenweb-podcast/"],"item_identifiers":["[]"],"rights":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"rights_license":["Creative Commons Attribution (BY)"],"access":["Streaming and download"],"creator_names":["Mathieu Aubin"],"creator_names_search":["Mathieu Aubin"],"creators":["[{\"url\":\"\",\"name\":\"Mathieu Aubin\",\"dates\":\"\",\"notes\":\"\",\"nation\":[],\"role\":[\"Producer\"]}]"],"contributors":["[]"],"Publication_Date":[2020],"material_description":["[]"],"digital_description":["[{\"file_url\":\"https://cdn.simplecast.com/audio/28a9da/28a9da1f-8cca-410c-b5d7-8165a73f9394/cef978e4-dfa7-45e2-a2c9-0d9a4a465a38/sw-minisode-ep-6_tc.mp3\",\"file_path\":\"\",\"filename\":\"sw-minisode-ep-6_tc.mp3\",\"channel_field\":\"\",\"sample_rate\":\"44.1 kHz\",\"duration\":\"00:11:06\",\"precision\":\"\",\"size\":\"10,734,072 bytes\",\"bitrate\":\"\",\"encoding\":\"\",\"contents\":\"\",\"notes\":\"MP3 audio\",\"title\":\"SW Minisode ep 6\",\"credit\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"content_type\":\"Sound Recording\",\"featured\":\"\",\"public_access_url\":\"https://spokenweb.ca/podcast/episodes/audio-of-the-month-from-poetic-surveillance-to-an-avant-garde-dinner-fit-for-a-queen/\"}]"],"Dates":["[{\"date\":\"2020-06-15\",\"type\":\"Publication Date\",\"notes\":\"\",\"source\":\"\"}]"],"Location":["[{\"url\":\"https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/22080572#map=16/45.49381/-73.58233\",\"venue\":\"Concordia University McConnell Building\",\"notes\":\"\",\"address\":\"1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8\",\"latitude\":\"45.4968036\",\"longitude\":\"-73.57792785757887\"}]"],"Address":["1400 Boulevard de Maisonneuve Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3G 1M8"],"Venue":["Concordia University McConnell Building"],"City":["Montreal, Quebec"],"Note":["[]"],"Related_works":["[]"],"_version_":1853670549828403200,"timestamp":"2026-01-07T14:59:54.290Z","contents":["This month we bring you a very special guest curator edition of SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month. In this minisode, Katherine McLeod is joined by SpokenWeb researcher and postdoctoral fellow Mathieu Aubin for a glimpse into the life and work of Canadian poet bill bissett – from poetic surveillance to an avant-garde dinner fit for a Queen.\n\n(00:00)\tMusic\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n(00:10)\tHannah McGregor\tWelcome to our SpokenWeb minisodes. Each month on alternate fortnights—that’s every second week following the monthly SpokenWeb Podcast episode—join me, Hannah McGregor, and minisode host and curator Katherine McLeod for SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month miniseries. We’ll share with you specially curated audio clips from deep in the SpokenWeb archives. This month, we are excited to share a special guest curator edition of the SpokenWeb minisodes from SpokenWeb postdoctoral fellow Mathieu Aubin. Without further ado, here’s Katherine McLeod and Mathieu Aubin with SpokenWeb’s Audio of the Month: ‘mini’ stories about how literature sounds.\n(01:03)\tTheme Music\t[Instrumental Overlapped With Feminine Vocals]\n(01:03)\tKatherine McLeod\tFor this Audio of the Month, I’d like to introduce you to a special guest who will be guiding us through a variety of recordings of Canadian sound poet bill bissett. Our guest is Mathieu Aubin, a SpokenWeb postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University. So how did this Audio of the Month come about, you might ask? Well, Mathieu started by pitching an idea to the Audio of the Week series, and if you’re a SpokenWeb researcher and an audio clip catches your attention, please do get in touch and your audio clip could become part of the Audio of the Week or even an Audio of the Month. Now, what was it that caught Mathieu’s attention? He was conducting an oral history interview with bill bissett and bill started telling him about “that time when he had dinner with the queen.” Yes, had dinner with the queen. That caught my attention, too. But to get to that part in the story, let’s hear, Mathieu set the scene through sound.\n(02:08)\tMathieu Aubin\tThis month, I have the pleasure and privilege to be your Audio of the Month curator. As your curator, I’ll be introducing and briefly discussing three audio clips documenting a decade in bill bissett’s life. As you may or may not know, bissett is a visual artist and award-winning gay poet who has published over 50 books. He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, November 23rd, 1939, and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, 1958. There, he co-created blewointment magazine and blewointment press, which published visual, concrete, and sound poetry. Though bissett is now an iconic poet, he faced many difficulties during the late 1960s and the 1970s. For instance, in the late 1960s, when Vancouver narcotics police officers raided counter-cultural communities, bissett was arrested for possession of cannabis. You can hear about this experience in the recording of the poem “another 100 warrants” read during the Sir George Williams Reading Series on October 31st, 1969. Let’s listen.\n(03:11)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, bill bissett reciting “another 100 warrants issued”] Another hundred warrants issued. News flash. Seven men entered a Vancouver graveyard only to disappear in a flash of white light. What’s it like, oh straight person, square-jawed, to be able to shop around save three vets from the Army & Navy without being stalked, harassed, etc. by the narcs at every turn you take. Hey, what’s it like to get up in the morning, gathered, you and your friends, close ones, around the warming stove without the RCMP crashing through the veils within the embargo of mistrust. Canada, etc.\n(03:45)\tMathieu Aubin\tExperiences such as these with the mounties and narcs were documented by other poets in Vancouver, such as Sharon Thesen in her poem “Chrysanthemum Perfume,” which is discussed by our sister podcast SoundBox Signals in their episode “Only the Imagination Carries Forward.” Though he was freed from jail with the help of UBC English professor Warren Tallman, bissett remained on the local police’s radar. This forced him to spend many of the 1970s living in secrecy while continuing to run his blewointment press, publishing his work with presses such as Talon Books. In 1977, bissett’s poetry was debated in the House of Commons because Conservative MPs cited his work as evidence of the Canada Council’s misuse of public funding. That year, bissett’s Canada Council funding was heavily reduced, causing members of Vancouver’s literary community to come together and defend their friend. In last month’s Audio of the Week post titled “bill bissett on CKVU-TV September 1978,” we hear an example of these efforts. In the recording from the PennSound collection, a partner affiliate of the SpokenWeb research network, we hear Pia Shandel, then-host of The Vancouver Show, document what had happened to bissett as he chants in the background and reads the poem “th wundrfulness uv th mountees our secret police.”\n(05:03)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, bill bissett reciting “th wundrfulness uv th mountees our secret police”] The wonderfulness of the mounties, our secret police. They open our mail, petulantly they burn down barns they can’t bug. They listen to our political leaders phone conversations. What could be less inspiring to overhear? [Audience Laughs] They had me down on the floor til I turned purple, then my friends pulled them off me. They think breastfeeding is disgusting. Every time we come here to raid this place, you always have that kid on your tit. They tore my daughter’s doll’s head off looking for dope. One of my more memorable beatings was in the backseat locked inside one of their unmarked cars. They work for the CIA. At night, they drive around and shine their searchlights on people embracing and with their PA systems, tell them to keep away from the trees. They listen to your most secret farts, rewinding the tape, looking for hidden meaning. Indigestion is a national security risk.\n(06:13)\tMathieu Aubin\tIn the poem, the speaker documents the mounties surveillance tactics, such as opening people’s mail, recording phone calls, expressing heterosexist comments, and physically attacking him. While I’ve thought about this decade in bissett’s life for many years and I’ve met with him on several occasions to talk about this time in his life, when we last spoke, he shared a surprising twist to the story. In an oral history interview with him, I shared with bissett that Pierre Elliot Trudeau, then-prime-minister, was apparently upset about the accusations against the Canada Council. bissett was surprised when I told them this as he recalled attending a dinner at Ottawa’s Château Laurier hosted by Trudeau and attended by Queen Elizabeth II. The dinner was supposed to be a showcase of Canada’s Avant-Garde artists, including writers like bpNichol, Carol Bolt, Michael Ondaatje, and bissett himself. As bissett told me this story, I learned that his life of being pursued by the Vancouver police and the mounties, living in secrecy, and facing homophobic attacks in the House of Commons had as a counterpoint an experience of dining with the queen and explaining sound poetry to her. Oral histories can be incredible sources of twists and turns. I’m thankful that I’ve been able to have so many fruitful conversations with bissett and that he shared this story with me. Here is a story by bissett about him and his friend Carol Bolt, author of the play One Night Stand, meeting the queen sometime in the late 1970s. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did when I first heard this story.\n(07:49)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, bill bissett] There were a lot of beautiful guys there.\n(07:52)\tAudio Recording\t[Audio, Mathieu Aubin] Mhm.\n(07:52)\tAudio Recording\t[bill] And the queen… Carol Bolt was there. She had gone to bed early for a person and she wrote a great play called One Night Stand.\n(08:05)\tAudio Recording\t[Mathieu] Okay.\n(08:05)\tAudio Recording\t[bill] And it got a lot of performances all across Canada. And she wanted to meet the queen. I was wearing a powder– no, I was wearing a blue tuxedo with a powder blue shirt, frills going down the middle of it.\n(08:25)\tAudio Recording\t[Mathieu] I can picture it, yeah.\n(08:25)\tAudio Recording\t[bill] And I just loved it. I just… I was so happy and no one had gotten anywhere for me to spend the night, I’d forgotten about that. Everyone else, don’t know.\n(08:35)\tAudio Recording\t[Mathieu] Yeah.\n(08:35)\tAudio Recording\t[bill] And so anyway, so I wasn’t worried yet. And so I was bringing Carol Bolt over to meet the queen. Like Pierre Trudeau, she’s really short. And I was taller than her as well. And I said, “Your majesty, I’d love you to meet Carol Bolt. And she’s the author of a wonderful Canadian play called One Night Stand. Do you know what a one night stand is?” And she said, “Well, not now, but I did.” And then Carol disappeared. I said, “Good heavens, she’s disappeared.”\n(09:12)\tAudio Recording\t[Mathieu] Yeah.\n(09:12)\tAudio Recording\t[bill] And.. no, it was the queen that said, “Good heavens.” I said, “Oh my God, she’s not here. She got so shy she ran away.”\n(09:19)\tAudio Recording\t[Mathieu] Aww.\n(09:19)\tAudio Recording\t[bill] She couldn’t do it. I understood that. And so then she said, “Well, what do you do?” She said to me. I said, “I do sound poetry.” And she said, “What is that?” I said it was poetry that the main emphasis is on sound and, you know, just make sounds. The sounds are the enchantment or the experience–\n(09:42)\tAudio Recording\t[Mathieu] Yeah.\n(09:42)\tAudio Recording\t[bill] –rather than the meaning. And she said, “Oh, that sounds very interesting.” And then the queen was going to leave after, a little while after that… We’ve been reported a sniper in the lobby or something. And then Carol came back and she said, “I can do it now. I took a deep breath.” I said, “Okay, let’s go.” And so I went after the queen and I touched her on the shoulder, which you’re not allowed to do.\n(10:04)\tAudio Recording\t[Mathieu] [Gasps] Oh!\n(10:04)\tAudio Recording\t[bill] Her skin was like smooth–\n(10:05)\tAudio Recording\t[Mathieu] Yeah.\n(10:05)\tAudio Recording\t[bill] –like smooth. And I said, “Your majesty, Carol’s here!” She said, “Oh, blessings, you’ve reappeared! How excellent,” I mean, she was very festive.\n(10:17)\tAudio Recording\t[Mathieu] Aww.\n(10:17)\tAudio Recording\t[bill] And it was, yeah, it was a lovely evening.\n(10:21)\tMusic\t[Piano Overlaid With Distorted Beat]\n(10:26)\tKatherine McLeod\tThat was bill bissett in conversation with Mathieu Aubin. My thanks to Mathieu for suggesting these audio clips from SpokenWeb, PennSound and an oral history interview conducted as part of Mathieu’s postdoctoral SpokenWeb research. Find out how to listen to all of these recordings and more by visiting spokenweb.ca. Thanks to Hannah McGregor and Stacey Copeland for working with me to produce this minisode. My name is Katherine McLeod and tune in next month for another deep dive into the sounds of the SpokenWeb archives."],"score":2.539672}]